permafrost

26
if a person can break, i did by 7.30 on a thursday night when my greatest desire was to be home and not out with people and smiles that barely reached lips tainted by lies told first to the self and then to the rest of us just wishing for silence.

27
if books could talk
then i’d know my grandfather’s secrets

photo books and family trees listed
in king arthur leave more questions
than resolutions.

28
there’s a line somewhere between
self serving, selfish,
and self preservation -
i still haven’t found it.

29
smoke on cold breeze
sends you back -
to high school and insecurities
and the uncertainty of 18
that could be left behind every summer
for a camp in the mountains -
seven days of being almost
before reality comes back knocking

30
crickets and frogs sing
between swats of buzzing things
best left on the underside of a shoe.

31
crickets sing in
syncopated patterns
heralding spring.

32
crickets sing
behind a sunset
shrouded in fog
34
we are burning
burning
burning
(never wonder why i default
to a language other than yiddish
when surrounded by anyone
not family - it’s not fluency,
it’s survival)