or maybe a bad year
    does it matter
what pendulum counts its own swings

she was having a bad day
sitting in the black
    where vision is black
          heart is black
            and rooms are always dark
            and too familiar
she was rocking in a worn corner chair
    unaware that a leaf had dropped
        from the last pin oak
        on her block
    and there was no other movement
         the cat sat close      still
        feeling illness in the air

she was having a bad day
when the earth is too wobbly and wet
    forgot about lithium
    forgot tomorrow’s difference
got emptiness growing pain with each breath
    perhaps it was seeing the dead squirrel
    perhaps it was the echoing spikes of her mother’s voice
    perhaps it was the moment she screamed         or didn’t
        when his lips pressed too hard against her teeth
        or some other synapse recalled from
             the cavernous veins of her life
           some other time she tasted her own blood

she was having a bad day
when the cold won’t leave your marrow
she had the phone in one hand
    her husband’s gun in the other
she wrote too many reasons in
      tiny precise notes
      loose rambly letters
she placed them with purpose
    as a tidy testament to a       life
she had a plan
she called the police
she wanted to be saved
she said someone was coming
someone with a gun
    was coming
she was having a bad day
when only deception can tell a true story
her crazy friend was coming
    to shoot the police
right there at the corner
    at the little store where
        she used to thumb through comic books
        where no one would remember her now
                without her hair done

she was having a bad day
when the sun coming through the blinds
    has no wisdom to offer
she called the police
       every fifteen minutes
she called her policeman husband
        working in another town
        to remind him to bring home
        milk     and cat food
she lifted the heaviness of her head to look forward
    and rose from the chair
        as if being carried slowly
        from the bed bottom
             of a forgotten moonlit lake

she was having a bad day
when all streets are narrow and no pedestrians can pass
and when she got there
     her coat covering the nightgown she’d worn all day
     her shoes untied and only half stepped into
     her eyes unfocused but determined
there were four of them armed and uniformed
     their shoes in a shiny straight line
          ready to protect and serve
they saw the crazy friend from her phone call
they saw metal emerge from her long wool pocket
    and she felt the torture of vacancy
                      the shrieking tornado gusts of madness
                      the ultimate endlessness of it
        leave her body in streams of blood           gone    gone

she felt it leave her body
just like she would have felt it
    the next day
watching the kids on the block play basketball
    or the day after
changing the sheets
    or in a few weeks
combing her hair
 
she was having a bad day
when luck loses its footing on the pavement
    right there on a jersey corner
    right in my home town
    right on the very spot
        where my own demon depression
            had wrestled me out of joy
        where redolent in adolescence
            without gun or razor
             i could not find
             a reason for living
             a moment more
       where in my teenage self possesion
            i had not thought to ask for
            official assistance
                 as she had

i say she was having a bad day
the newspaper said suicide by police.
    an officially designated diagnosis
    not requiring investigation or indictment
she was having a bad day
and spoiling theirs too
they did what she wanted to do
    but would not do
        on her own

she was having a bad day
when insomnia cannot remember your doctor’s name
they did what the sickness demanded
    she would have been so easy to wound
        even with only one weapon
oh blessed relief that comes at the hands
     of those with no fear of darkness
the same blessed relief that comes after
    a trip to a pharmacy

she was having a bad day
    and spoiling theirs too
they did their duty
the world is probably much safer now
they did their duty
     wrote a report
       spilled some coffee

        and unlike me when i read about it

they slept through to a tomorrow
    without seeing their own madness
 
 
 

Hoboken
                To everything there is a season.
 

It is the birthplace of baseball, Frank Sinatra, and
    Maxwell House Coffee (the stink of stale brew
    setting the town’s square-mile boundary).
Hoboken is where my daddy was born
    and my uncles grew up
    and my grandfather played poker after hours
        after his waiter day was done
        until the boys came and got him
        in the back room over the bar
        in the morning
    and my grandmother cooked
        in the luncheonette.
Seemed like she was always cooking
        mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy
        turkey, corned beef, ham...
She cooked everything.
Seemed like day and night.
Seemed like the best food ever.
Still seems that way.
Still seems like nothing will taste that good again

It was the town of many childhood Sundays
    in Grandpa Max’s arms
        a bright pink rash
        tattooing the freckled baby skin
        on my arm
    evidence of the pickle barrel brine.
Susie the cat outside guarding the door
    moving her two black whiskers
        to sniff the day
    watching me walk next door
        for some chicklets
        and a comic book for me
        and a pack of cigarettes for my father.
Andy saying, “Look, how big you got
    Betsilla, look.
    Oy, shayna maydel.
    Here wanna kiss?
    Take a kiss.
    and take one of these to your
    beautiful mother.”
And me running back down First Street
“Grandma look,
    Andy gave me candies!
    and one for Mommy too!”

When I worked Off-Broadway
    at the Roundabout
        on 23rd Street
         in the city
        just across the river
    I lived in Tante Hannah’s apartment
        at Sixth and Bloomfield
        while she wintered in Miami.
Washington Street felt just like little-girl home.
Safe.  Easy.
Short walk past Maxwell’s and the
    Clam Broth House to PATH.
So, I decided this was where I would stay.
So, on Erev Pesach I went to see an apartment
    right there on Washington and Second.
And Dad said that yeah he knew the landlord.
    “He went to school with Uncle Morris.
    He’d know Morris. Morris was
    tops in his class.  Very popular
    and this guy would
    know Benny, you know
    Ben Musto.  (Dad’s best friend
    from Hoboken)  They went to the same
        church.

I met the landlord’s son on the stoop.
“I’ve got two apartments.  Let’s
    look at the one on the second floor first
        and the one on the third floor second.
    The tenant’s still in the first one, but she’s
        gonna move to a new one on the fourth
        floor.”  He said as we climbed the stairs.
When we got there, she was there.
The tenant.  A woman about my age.
Hair and eyes the same as mine
But, having children too young
    made her look much older,
    at least, that’s what I was
    thinking while we were talking
    and I was thinking, wow, she’ll
    be a great neighbor.  I’ll keep sugar
    on hand just so she can borrow a cup
    and I’ll ask her what’s the best place to
    shop, and maybe her kids will come over
    and play with the cat, and...
 
“What are you?” she said.
What do you mean?
“Where do you come from?”
I’m from here.  I’m from Jersey.  I’m from
    Woodbridge, near Edison.
“What are you?”
Eastern European.
“What are you?”
Russian, Lithuanian, Austrian, and
    one of my grandparents was born in
    Natchez, Mississippi...
I was babbling.  I was blocking it out.
I was hoping it was a different question.
I was going to say writer, lighting technician.
“What are you?
Are you Jewish?”
Yes.

 “Get her out of here!”  she screamed.
“I don’t want her in the same room as
    my children.  Get her out of here.
    No Jews around my children.  My
    children.”
And, without saying anything
    like he didn’t hear it
    like nothing happened
    like it was invisible to him
    without saying anything about it
        not sorry she’s crazy
        not anything, the landlord’s
        son just said, “C’mon, let me show you
        the one on the third floor.”
And she was screaming up the stairs.
“Get that Jew out of here.”
While he was showing me the kitchen.
“Get that Jew out of here.”
While he was showing me the bathroom.
“Get that Jew out of here.”
While he was showing me the triple bay windows.
“Get that Jew out of here.”
Without a response, I left when the tour
    was over saying I would let him know.
I left shaking.  I called my mother.  Told
    her the story.  Wished them good
    Yom Tov.
 
A few months later, late September
    just after Rosh Hashanah on my way back
    from the city about two in the morning
    I was walking down Washington Street
    and saw a big fire.
There were all these
    fire engines and
    police cars
And a woman about my age with the same
    hair and eyes was standing there crying
    with her three little kids.
And the next morning, there was
    no more building there.

I passed a synagogue
    on the way to work.
I’d walked this way many times
    but never noticed it before
    just like I never noticed how many
    of the people at the Roundabout were
    Jewish and how many of my friends
    weren’t.
A sign reminded the congregation
    of the time.  Days of Awe.
    Day of Atonement.
L’Shanah Tovah, I thought.