No One We Know
Poetry
Publisher Aya/Mercury Press (1986)
ISBN 0920544444
Sample poem:
Grosney’s Delicatessen
The sherbet glasses in this Chinese restaurant
are authentic, you know. Exactly like the ones
in the delicatessen, the facets blunt, cloudy,
durable. I have something. I have a real coleslaw
dish, thick white oval with a green stripe. My
grandfather, you don’t know him, isn’t thinking
of anything as he steps inside. Nothing to match
that cool and dim, the floor swept clean, familiar.
He smoothes his apron and rests a hand on the meek surface of wood. All along the long counter the customers turn, nod. The grey cat touches the hem of his trouser with the white tip of her nose. I was never there, the only place on earth I exist.