Sandy Solomon: Widow
Now the mockingbird at the mulberry
and its mate on the fence pretend they’re crows
and their caws contend with the noise in my bones
Sandy Solomon: Reading
The pasts, the past perfects: each sentence
a forest pool shining with borrowed,
broken light
Sandy Solomon: Hunger
His parents were doctors, Jewish refugees,
with a German-sounding name. In Des Moines,
in a time of war, he’d leave for school each day
carrying his painted metal lunchbox.
Sandy Solomon: Making Soup
Who would have guessed before this year
how cheerful this simple chore would feel
now that the sick room’s silence starts
beyond the swinging kitchen door.
Sandy Solomon: After Kahlo
We hid in a big wardrobe to sing
songs praising Zapata, our voices
joined, the air smelling of walnut.
Sandy Solomon: Grief
I move back and forth
down the supermarket aisles,
the way I move back and forth
through grief’s famous stages.
Sandy Solomon: After the Invasion
Cut salami on the counter,
greasy knife beside it,
wrapper lolling like
a tongue. We left it there
when the sirens screamed.
Sandy Solomon: Diary from a Tomato Cannery, 1912
I walked part way home with a girl of ten
who’d peeled tomatoes from 6 am
to 6:30 in the evening.
“Things to eat is so high,” she said.
“We can’t go to school. We gotter work.”
Sandy Solomon: Diary of Amelia Stewart Knight
Commenced the ascent of the Blue Mountains.
A lovely morning; all hands delighted
Sandy Solomon: Casual Labor
The man at the front door wants work,
any job. Hand on the knob, I start
to turn him down, to swing the door’s weight
to, but then I consider my mother’s mother.
Sandy Solomon: My Friend Seems Near Tears
Look at her, so tall and beautiful
when she forgets herself, her whole body
lit with a sloppy, ungovernable brightness
Valerie Bacharach: Night, Descending
Night explodes in fractures of shining glass.
Sidewalks hold storefront fragments,
deadly crystals glitter,
almost beautiful with still-red blood.
Sandy Solomon: On a Visit to Friends
I’m drawn to the window where the hummingbirds
come; the shrill sound of wings precedes them;
then they hover at the red sugar water,
feeding before they’re gone.
Sandy Solomon: Abortion Clinic
Pregnant, but unclear about her last period,
she said she thought nothing was wrong for weeks,
but knew she couldn’t afford another, couldn’t
afford the five kids she had now
