by H. D. Brown

the scrimshaw scratchings
covering grandpa Schmidt
weren’t the patterned sailor
tattoos that cover these college girls

Captain Norm got em one at a
time the old–fashioned way
screwed stewed and tattooed
around the edges of the oceans

gave him something to look at
whenever those fucking germans
sank him he said
floating around in an octagon plywood

box with whatever you grab
and a few dying shipmates one
time for forty five days
might change a man I guess

all it did for captain norm
is drive him to more tattoos
by the time he died he was covered
all five feet four inches that was left of him

we did what he asked skinned
and tanned the son of a bitch
hung his hide behind a sheet of
glass at the San Pedro seaman’s bethel

by Florence Weinberger

You slow
you live your life on a molecular level
each joule of pain enhanced
like nerve endings through the lens of a microscope
the dross of the outside world
distanced like neuropathic toes.

On those tapered mornings
that can be gray as uncarded wool
you pull on your compression stockings
take measure of only your pulse and heartbeat
and carefully count each pill into its small slot.

Sleep can be deep or it can morph into
absence, your own, even the buzz of a fly.

Sometimes the wind rattles the shutters
and you are reminded of the drummers
on the beach last summer.

Sometimes a letter comes, a knock on the door.
A tincture of goodness left on the doorstep.
Two people bring salad, napkins and water.

You answer the phone.
It’s a little like leaving Egypt.

by Florence Weinberger

The poet admits it herself,
her poem makes no sense, she says
it might have started with the death of my salamander,
whose rainbows reminded me of God’s promise to Noah.

When my father died, his ring with the phony initials went to his
     grandson, who lost it.

I know my mother is dead, her chipped pot in a lower drawer
     since 1978.

I know my husband is dead, his gloves still curled to his fingers.

Both sisters–in–law, left me no trinkets.

Most dreamers, not one syllable of their unreported crimes.

I could add my best friend when I was twelve, a photograph, and
     of course, the sea.

The sea and I’m alive.

The sea, and news comes to me, the too young, the very old who
     buy new Fiats
(I should be that brave, I should go to Africa.)

We’re decimated, yet one friend’s yearly holiday card expands and
     expands,
began with two,
now twenty,
the dog.