Mother Never Cries
Come over she says I’ll make you a tuna fish sandwich
Lunch with Mother who lives in black and white
Black – Uncle Ado –Cheap bastard – money to him was everything
Black – her friend Nina banished –She sent her sister away to a nursing home
Those in black were dead but no tears only anger
About her whites she has an ease
Your father I kiss him once in the morning and once at night
Now, as I bite into her sandwich she comes closer…leans in
You know I never cry, not even when my father died
I’m at a loss, what’s this Mom…doubt?
Self-righteous…rigid…you?
Did she think, My boy, see what he says
Tell him what I don’t understand
I with never a question about anything…ever?
And I think what a strange way
It would be to tell me
I love you
What a strange way
The Gloves
The wintry day says gloves
Walk in the cold rain and it says gloves
Stop for lunch at the Tex Mex and it says
Gloves on the table to pencil my menu selection
The newspaper to read and it says to my spot by the window
The chicken, beans and rice plate and it says life is good
Time to go and where are my gloves?
On the table, in my briefcase, in my jacket and nothing
I look up and at the door a man in a sweatshirt holds gloves
Out the door he goes and doesn’t put them on
I see him walk down the block
They could be my gloves
I think I’m an old fool these days
I can’t chase him down the block
Maybe the gloves in a place I missed
Might even have left them home
No, he walks out with the gloves that say
Look here, left alone on the table
Left alone and it’s not a steal
He couldn’t just call out – anyone here lose these
Yet I want some sort of answer
Someone at fault…
Someone at kindness
The man not quite a thief
Me not quite a victim
Greg Moglia is a veteran of 27 years as Adjunct Professor of Philosophy of Education at N.Y.U and 37 years as a high school teacher of Physics and Psychology. His poems have been accepted in over 300 journals in the U.S., Canada, England, India, Australia, Sweden, Belgium and Austria as well as five anthologies. He is 8 times a winner of an ALLEN GINSBERG Poetry Award sponsored by the poetry center at Passaic County Community College. He lives in Huntington, N.Y.
