Elisabeth Murawski



Etude



as a boy he slept

with bits of wood

between his fingers



to increase their span

now he plays

to breathe to last



past this country house

under the chestnuts

taming the keys



of Madame Skarbek's piano

pouring notes

against the night



that is falling

eyes destined to close

on a ceiling not in Poland



whose soul in his hands

will flower

circumnavigate the globe



Sand, Recovering



Freshly bathed, she stands

at the window with its fan

of leaves, one towel



wrapped about her head,

another in her hand

trailing behind her



like a reluctant child.

The key turns, the man

she wasn't thinking of



stands before her. They kiss.

Where is the music?

Her cheeks flush



the cherry of the carpet.

She hides her face on his lapel.

The gold of Chopin's hair



taunts her

from every fleur-de-lis

on the wallpaper.




Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Moon and Mercury and Troubled by an Angel. Her work has appeared in The Yale Review, Ontario Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, MARGIE, and others.
 

Dori Appel



LEGACY



Goodbye Sharlotta

gold is running in the streets

send for you when I can

kiss the kids.



Is that what he said in his note,

my mother's handsome father,

when he left my grandmother in Hungary

to wait for him?

Well, something of the sort.



If my other grandfather

had attempted such a trick

my Grandmother Sarah would have

gone after him in the wagon

and brought him home,

the way she did when they took him

for the Polish Infantry.



But my Grandmother Sharlotta

drew her four children

closer to her knees and waited,

grateful that three of them were boys.

For ten years

relatives brought her groceries

by cover of night to save her shame,

and a borrowed servant

still called her gnadige fraü.

When the littlest boy died

a relative wrote the sad news

to the husband in America,

since a fever in her girlhood

took with it most of what

Sharlotta learned in school.



Fever or no fever,

my Grandmother Sarah

would have written the letter in blood

and swum it herself

across the cold Atlantic,

demanding blood for blood.



But my Grandmother Sharlotta

packed up her three surviving children

when the boat fare came

and joined her handsome husband

in New York. this is where

we find them, in a modest

fourth floor walkup where

he's given her another baby

for a fortieth birthday gift.

He doesn't seem to like her

any better than before,

but he comes home every night

(often late), and forgives her

many failings- her confusion,

helplessness, impatience

with the new little girl.

Her brain is weak, he sighs,

recalling the fever of her youth.

Sharlotta silently bites her lip,

but I make a different choice.



You did this, I tell him,

In my Grandmother Sarah's voice.
 

EXCESS BAGGAGE


On my wedding day, a guest

I'd never seen before

drew me from my bridegroom's side.

Whispering between bites of cake,

she left a warning clinging to my hair:

Don't take his name or you'll get

his whole family's karma— a package deal!



Now I lie in this crowded bed,

bullied by dead in-laws and

and their regrettable mistakes,

the mattress beneath me sagging

with the weight. Quietly,

I recite my own, my original name.

What name? In the dark,

I strike my forehead, making sparks.



When my grandfather

arrived at Ellis Island,

a man in dark uniform

looked him up and down.

"Jablko," he said,

"you don't want that here.

Look, I'm giving you Appelbaum

with a beautiful spelling-

free for nothing

I'm throwing in the tree!



New name, new karma,

as simple as that- and the same

for my karma-by-marriage. Imagine

the new arrivals trekking through

that dusty ashram, leaving

sad histories behind.

(How the sweepers must

have grumbled as they emptied

their dustpans in the trash!)



At last I fall asleep,

the pillow pressed against

my ears, warding off echoes

of unfamiliar songs and

quarrels not forgotten

nor made right.



"Legacy," which is about my very different Polish and Hungarian grandmothers, was originally published in Prairie Schooner. It is also included in my collection of poems, Another Rude Awakening (Cherry Grove Collections, 2008).



"Excess Baggage" appeared in Pudding.



Dori Appel's, poem, "Legacy", is included in her collection of poems, Another Rude Awakening (Cherry Grove Collections 2008.) To learn more about her work as a poet and playwright, please visit her website, http://www.doriappel.com

Ed Budzilowic



The Heretic



They put him into the room to die.

Before they closed the door,

he memorized the map

of water damage,

the fissures in the wall,

and the buckling floor.

Then, only darkness- not yet

"the sound his own breathing",

not yet silence.


He could cry out,

summoning the dogs of hell

to lovingly divide

him, flesh from bone.

No- he would remain whole,

the agony imploding within,

becoming heavier than darkness

like a stone dropped in a well.


All night he stood there,

slowly turning in the dark.

Then came a crack of light,

like a slender wand

waiting to be plucked.

He would refuse it,

as he had their bread.


And when it dimmed

and disappeared,

he knew: Out there

is only starlight,

all lit up by a star.



Ed Budzilowicz was born in 1948 in Chicago. He studied writing under Paul Carroll. Ed makes a living as a classical singer, and poetry remains a passionate pursuit. This will be his first published poem.