Eva Schlesinger
(USA)
Telepathy
After my dad died, when friends gathered in our living room,
I saw him sitting on our white loveseat
He was beaming
He wore navy blue pants and a white shirt
I was excited that he was there
The next day I saw him sitting in our white tweed armchair
reading The New York Times
holding the corner between his thumb and forefinger before turning the page
grinning with an impish gleam in his eye
He looked amused
I liked watching him turn the pages
When people gathered the next evening,
they packed our living room, overflowing into our hallway
They stood praying, reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish
My dad stood on the outskirts between the staircase and front door
His face looked serious, as it always did when he prayed
He wore dark blue pants and bent his knees, slightly swaying
He held the worn prayer book, chanting the melodies
When my mom took me to the train station,
we sat on a bench opposite the platform, and
I saw my dad standing on its far right side
Dressed in navy blue pants, white shirt, and navy blue winter jacket,
he raised his cane high in the air, then down again
I couldn’t bear to tear my eyes away
Come back, come back, I wanted to tell him
Back home, I wanted to feel his presence everyday
While standing at the bus stop,
I was thinking of him when suddenly I heard him
whistle high and long, short and low
My head jerked to see who was whistling
I couldn’t see anyone
One night I held my hand up against his photo next to my bed
I pressed my hand to his face
It pulsed back
He pushed against my hand
I Hear Him
I hear How are you, my dear?
I see him beaming.
I hear him laughing a generous, hearty, full-bellied laugh.
I feel his spirit all around me.
I feel his spirit sashaying, zigzagging, shimmying all around me.
I smell orange blossoms, jasmine, honeysuckle.
I taste dark rye pumpernickel with gouda, and dark chocolate covered marzipan.
I know I’m home.
I hear him whistling short and high, then long and low, short, then long.
He gets my attention that way in the store, when I can’t decide whether to get the spiralbound royal blue notebook with eighty pages
or the robin’s egg one with 150 pages,
and he’s standing in line for the cashier.
I see him in his navy blue pants and white shirt
with his navy blue checkbook cover
peeking out of his white chest pocket.
I feel his spirit all around me.
I feel his spirit sashaying, zigzagging, shimmying all around me.
I smell honeysuckle, pink roses, sea salt air.
I taste sea salt on my lips.
I know I’m home.
I hear him say, Don’t do anything rash.
I see him puttering, hunched over.
I feel his spirit all around me.
I feel his spirit sashaying, zigzagging, shimmying all around me.
I smell eucalyptus.
I taste the salt of my tears.
I know he’s with me.
I hear him.
Wrapped Up In Dreams
She is holding the book, Wrapped Up In Dreams
She is wrapped up in her dreams
In her dreams she is wrapped in reams
Wrapped in reams, on a chair by Eames
She is reading about Lalime’s
She dreams about Lalime’s
She is writing reams about her dreams
She is writing about Lalime’s
It seems
What’s undone is her seams
Her seams unravel, it seems
Her seams want to travel, it seems
Her seams seem to travel as seams
Her seams unravel and travel to gravel
It seems her seams are in teams
Teams of seams all at Lalime’s
It seems
While at Lalime’s,
She eats chocolate mousse with cream
She seems to beam
She beams and beams
She beams at teams of seams
She beams while at Lalime’s
It seems she is writing reams
It seems she’s wrapped up in dreams
She’s wrapped in dreams about Lalime’s
while holding the book she wrote on dreams
She evaporates as if in a dream
She evaporates and she dreams
She dreams she’s wrapped up in reams
Wrapped up in dreams
(Originally published in Scribbler, Issue 65)
Where Escargot Go à la carte in Go-Go Carts
I would like to sleep in a jeep
creeping toward the creperie
dreaming of the drapery
dreaming
as the jeep rumbles
at a snail’s pace
as the snails pace
in front of the racetrack
where the escargot go à la carte in go-go carts
waltzing at snowflake dances up to cold chins
in pink terry cloth bathrobes
with sash and sachet lavender etchings
sewage for the druids
fluid flaccid on Lake Placid
pinball in and out
for trout from Blausee
blasé
about strobelight men
hauling 2x4s to
women
in backgammon colors
chocolate and vanilla
in their banilla vanilla villa
I would like to sleep
in a jeep with
all this going on
in my sarong
with sirens flashing
and wings fluttering
and then
maybe
maybe
I would
wake
and
speak
(Originally published in View From My Banilla Vanilla Villa by Eva Schlesinger, dancing girl press, 2010)
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Eva Schlesinger is the author of the chapbooks, Ode 2 Codes & Codfish (slated for publication by dancing girl press in 2013), View From My Banilla Vanilla Villa (dancing girl press, 2010), and Remembering the Walker and Wheelchiar: poems of grief and healing (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Her poetry has received the Literal Latte Food Verse Award as well as been published in Cricket Magazine and California Quarterly. She lives in a banilla vanilla villa, where she reads voraciously, draws whimsical animals, plays magical flute melodies, and writes.
www.redroom.com/member/eva-schlesinger