Debra Kaufman – Six Poems

I Love When My Mother Appears in a Dream

as she does this morning. Just as in life,
she comes in and out of the dining room,
bringing more dishes, refilling glasses,
asking, What did I miss?

My siblings and I are home from college,
healthy and vibrant, laughing, hungry
to show off our learning, to challenge
our parents’ small-town beliefs.

Even in the dream I know she’s come
from the other side, parted the veil
to travel here in love. We won’t
have much time. I look for our father

at the head of the table. I would like
a bit of his advice. But I’m waking,
and the wind comes up. Their spirits linger
long enough for me to feel their blessings.

Neither Nor

Thin whistle of a green warbler.
Leaves listing, listening.

All day the red-eyed vireo
asks and answers its own question,
Where are you? Here I am,
delighted again and again.

My thoughts untethered
are neither novel nor profound—
not thoughts, more like impressions
drifting, small clouds away.

I am glad in my seventies I can still
climb the escarpment, still
hear the winter wren.

Long ago I asked my father
to lift me up to touch the moon.
He said it wasn’t as close as it looked
but lifted me high anyway.
I believed he would protect me always.

After Reading Pride and Prejudice I See the Man with the Dark Aura Again

Jane Austen might have called us desperate
walkers, said he had a troubled countenance.
Those first weeks of the shutdown weren’t we all
troubled? Minds full of turmoil, afraid

of each other’s breath. Though our paths crossed
every day and I always said good morning,
he never looked in my direction.
I didn’t expect him to speak or force a smile,

only hoped for a nod, a glance. A dark aura
trailed him, lingered like heavy cologne.
Whenever we met I’d wonder
what burdens he carried, if he had family.

For months I didn’t see him, hoped he was okay.
Then yesterday when we met he lifted
his hand in a half-wave. I doubt he noticed
but my steps felt lighter, livelier, all the way home.

Hula Hoop

Here I am in our front yard spinning
a hula hoop for the first time.
Our father brought them back from Chicago,
one for my sister, one for me.
We’ve never seen one before,
have to figure out how to work it.
Like this: your hands spin it around your waist
and you circle your body, you have to get
just the right speed and rhythm.
If you stop moving it slips down but you can
swivel your knees and get it up again.
We’re getting this new movement,
we’re sisters, in it together, and also want to see
who’s better. Dad comes out
and his voice is light, his voice has love in it.
He says centrifugal force, and I see the earth
spinning with all of us on it.
Joy ripples out from my body beyond
the trees up to the clouds and I spin and spin,
I tumble onto the grass, laughing.

Love, Love, Love

He appeared on the dock at Clear Lake
as if I’d conjured him: tan, blue-eyed, a blond surfer haircut,
and in that instant, how he looked at me,
I felt the charge, a magnetic pulse so thrilling
that I knew from reading novels must be love.

Whatever we said or didn’t thrummed
through our bodies. We walked and kissed,
kissed and walked. Our souls, radiant, streamed
from our eyes, sparked our lips, fingertips, toes.
Every minute apart was a burning.

My last night there we went dancing at The Surf.
The band played “All You Need Is Love.”
The moon lingered over the lake.
I cried when he gave me a bracelet.
We were fifteen. We promised to write.

Mrs. Standhaft

has a blue pattern over half her face,
a birthmark she calls her blueprint.
She speaks in an accent I can’t quite place.

Outside her hip-roofed cottage
flowerpots and birdhouses proliferate.
She tends her vegetable garden

in loose house dresses.
I bring her pecans. She offers me peas:
You’ll have to shell them yourself.

I like that she doesn’t elaborate or pry,
though it makes me want to know more
about her. When I ask if her wedding band

cutting into her finger is painful,
she says, Fifty years. It’s not for everyone,
then turns back to her chores.

The most she’s said to me, so far:
I’ve read the Bible my whole life and still
don’t know what God’s supposed to be.

Debra Kaufman is the author of the poetry collections Outwalking the Shadow, God Shattered, Delicate Thefts, The Next Moment, and A Certain Light.