Hoops Mania

I’d barely heard of basketball 

But then at Washington Grade School 

our sixth grade class formed a team

Bobby and Dick, Tommy and Gundy,

Kenny and Jim, also Roger

My parents never noticed  

But my grandfather, my dear Swedish grandfather

insisted that I join the team

I cried, I complained

Procrastinated, sulked

Scared out of my wits 

But Grandfather forced me 

The smallest kid in the class

All the others, tougher, more confident

We played at the Presbyterian Church

I sat at the end of the bench

…as far from the coach as possible 

Praying he wouldn’t notice me

I played a few minutes in the middle of each game

I don’t recall that I ever scored

one — single — point

Or even touched the ball 

After the season was over

my grandfather put up a basketball hoop

over the garage door in our driveway 

My brother Steven was my practice partner

I was four years older, six inches taller

But Steven was as fierce as a wolverine

We played horse, twenty-one, and one-on-one

Dodging, spinning, rebounding

Shooting free throws from out near the oak tree

Dribbling the ball on the loose cinder

After many weeks

we’d make a few shots

The snowstorms arrived in late fall 

We shoveled our court and played on the ice

Shedding our coats in the freezing temp

Slipping and falling but bouncing back up

After sunset we brought out a desk lamp

Hooked it up to the extension cord

And aimed the light toward the hoop

We’d stay out till bedtime

Sweaty, exhausted

Happy, excited

In junior high our group played in the gym at lunchtime

Then I’d go to the D.A.R. Boys Club after school

Deeny-Boy was my practice partner

I dreamt I might play for the Minneapolis Lakers 

If only I could perfect my twenty-foot shot

This dream, like most others, never came true

But still I learned many lessons

How to win and lose with humility

            to move on from painful losses

That playing by the rules is important

That success takes a long time

and hard work  

I owe a big debt to my grandfather

We always need help 

to figure out how best to live our lives 

CVS, World of Dreams

There are many fine places the world over

My neighbors love traveling to Paris or Rome 

But my own favorite trip is to CVS

Equally exciting, much closer to home 

CVS, as we know, is like Disneyland 

Treasures galore on aisle after aisle

Vitamins, buy one and get one for free 

Plus our clerk has the funkiest smile

A trip to CVS feels like winning the lottery

A strip of coupons as long as your arm 

Extra Bucks Rewards, believe it, free money 

The discount deodorants triple your charm 

CVS competes with the flea market’s prices

Gifts for my honey on the one dollar shelves

After the holidays, fifty percent off

Stocking stuffers for the kiddies and ourselves   

CVS, all agree, is a magical store 

Try it just once, you’ll be back evermore 

"The Weeping Woman": A Portrait of Dora Maar (Picasso, 1937)

Believe it or not, this is how I look to Pablo

It leaves me perturbed

His friends think it’s a masterpiece

but, to me, it’s pathetic

Is this who I am? 

When Pablo paints Marie-Therese

she is sunny and cheerful

But with me, they call me the weeping woman

I am the first to admit that I weep

There are many truths to weep about

Pablo abandons me for weeks at a time

to live with Marie-Therese

She is the mother of his daughter

while I cannot have a child

He claims he loves us equally 

When we insisted that he choose

he said we should fight it out ourselves

I pulled her hair, I bit her

She clawed and scratched

But in the end nobody won 

and Pablo sleeps with us both

I love Pablo the way a sunfish loves the water

But I weep when he is cruel

His temper is a boiling cauldron

He pushes me, slaps me

I never know what will set him off 

I try to escape

but I always come back

He promises he will control his anger 

We met last year at the Cafe des Deux Magots

I had gone there just to meet him

Pablo was 54, I was 28

He was famous, I was still new

So thrilling

And now, of course, I am his muse

He told me to abandon my photography career

To Pablo, photography is second-rate art

Even though I'd been recognized more and more

Now I am known only as Pablo’s mistress 

And, yes, as the weeping woman