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  

Landline Blues

I can remember those days long gone

When our phones were actually a treat 

We would talk with our sweethearts and mothers 

Call Wimpy’s for something to eat 

Our landlines are now like swarms of mosquitoes

High noon they’re all over the place

I swat one pest and twelve more fly in 

Total disdain for our space

These phones calls remind me of Mongol hordes  

Charging their steeds through the village  

Snatching up my wife and myself

Seeking out victims to pillage

Our phones are as bad as a plague of locusts

Gobbling up all that’s in sight  

Their noise drowns out all the real sounds

And turns our house into a blight 

My similes — forgive me — I’m out of control 

Locusts and Mongols, it can’t be that bad 

Though what’s more annoying than robocalls?

I call-blocked my mother, so sad 

Circa 1949: An Anaphoric Poem

I remember icicles that stretched from the roof to the ground

I remember pulling bloodsuckers from between our toes after swimming

I remember lugging my red wagon to the city dump with my dad to bring home good stuff

I remember capturing garter snakes from under the rocks in my mother’s garden

I remember swimming across the river with my dad following in the rowboat

I remember listening in on the neighbors on our party-line phone

I remember a flock of pheasants parading through our front yard

I remember stealing carrots and blackberries from Mrs. Mead’s garden

I remember when our road turned to mud in the spring and we couldn’t go to school

I remember climbing with my siblings to the top of the willow tree

I remember being scared of quicksand when we walked in waist-deep water to Mr. Shaver’s

I remember slashing my thumb with a hatchet on a Pig Island camping trip

I remember biking to the Ideal Dairy to buy lemon flake ice cream, two dips for a nickel

I remember the six-foot pine snakes that sunned in our front yard

I remember when our Irish Setter Mike fell through the ice and my mother rescued him

I remember poking sticks into an anthill and watching the ants go crazy

I remember my eating mother’s whitefish, pot roast, and potato sausage

I remember counting “I love you, I love you not” with the petals of a Black-Eyed Susan

I remember running barefoot races in the snow

I remember my dad towing us behind the car on our toboggan

I remember listening to Jack Benny and Duffy’s Tavern on Sunday night radio

I remember emptying dead bodies from the mousetraps

I remember when they opened the dams and drained all the water out of the river

I remember finding lost change under the sofa cushions (which my dad had

deliberately put there)

I remember when I threw acorns at my brother and he fell out of the oak tree

I remember singing “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall” at the outdoor fireplace

I remember my parents and their friends drinking Silver Cream beer

I remember when we killed the flying bat in our living room with a cast iron frying pan

I remember loving Captain Marvel comic books

I remember when the ice went out on “Chinese Bells Day”

I remember my uncle Karl urging me to dig up the “Indian burial mound” in our

back yard

I remember when Steve and I spilled red airplane dope on our brand new carpet

I remember being scared of the ghosts while riding my bike past the cemetery at night

I remember blowing milkweed seeds into the wind

I remember when Steve shot the snapping turtle with our bow and arrow

I remember my mother telling me I wasn’t perfect

I remember our dog swimming behind the boat when we traveled half a mile for a family 

picnic on Indian Island

I remember when we saw a mud puppy through the ice on the river’s floor

I remember collecting nightcrawlers for fishing on the cemetery lawn after a heavy rain

I remember when our dog Mike got porcupine quills stuck in his nose

I remember when Steve and I lit the hoop with a desk lamp so we could

play basketball at night on the frozen driveway

I remember when we shot at tin cans and bottles in the river with the twenty-two

I remember everything about being twelve years old

Knotty Questions

“How old are you, Grandpa?” Leo asked

I paused for a moment

“Eighty-two next month” 

The children gazed at me with wonder 

“How do you get to be that old?” Vida asked

“Think pure thoughts,” I said

“And work hard — don’t let yourself be lazy”

We had just finished breakfast

Pancakes, bacon, maple syrup

Their parents had driven off to work 

My first all-day test as a sitter 

“How old do you think is old?” I asked

“Twenty-five,” Vida suggested

“No, thirty,” Leo argued

I agreed, “Thirty sounds good”

“Thirty, maybe even more”

We were sitting on the carpet

playing with the children’s toy cars

I had the yellow car

The children green and purple

Here I am, I thought to myself

Nearing the last stages of my life

While the children have

most of theirs left 

“”Vroom vroom vroom,” I roared

pushing my race car from side to side

“Vroom vroom vroom,” the children repeated

chasing one another toward the piano bench

There are many things we can learn from each other

Grandparents, grandchildren

Such different places, eons apart

I know a few things about growing older

But the children have much more to teach 

about the secrets of being young  

Jeopardy Fever

Jeopardy fever gripped the viewers

The winner, James Holzhauer, thirty-two weeks 

Almost two point five million point dollars

Said Alex Trebek: “Never seen such techniques” 

James, a sports gambler who lives in Las Vegas 

Skipped his college classes to play online poker

Forget history books, he reads children’s readers

A quirky persona, the smirk of a joker

Week thirty-three, James faced Emma Boettcher

A Chicago librarian, a Jeopardy buff

James took the early lead; Emma doubled her bet

Neck and neck, which warrior would wind up most tough?

No one imagined she’d beat James’s bid 

But Holy Moly, you Boettcher life she did!