back and forth
in an open car door
when Mrs. L. dropped her home
after playing bridge. How
she swung from its frame
as the car reversed. How she toppled
with a head bleed, epileptic
fits for the rest of her life. I majored
in her rhythmic quirks, her rubbing
the fingers of her right hand,
the lolling of her tongue. The foot
itching to dance at some ghostly
nightclub, and the tapping of a teaspoon
against the steaming mug, coffee
lukewarm by the time she came home,
glazed and guileless.
How I’d hurry my friends
from the room even if she hadn’t lost
her bowels. Even if she weren’t
on the floor in melted ice, freezer
door open. The shame.
Even now, it rises with the clink
of a glass at a wedding,
or my husband’s restless
leg, or a cat pawing,
kneading, persistent, cadent.
Pamela Wax is the author of Walking the Labyrinth (Main Street Rag, 2022), Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023), and the forthcoming Every Single Beast of My Heart (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026). Her poems have received two Best of the Net nominations and awards from Crosswinds, Paterson Literary Review, Poets’ Billow, Oberon, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House. Some of her other publications include Barrow Street, Tupelo Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Pinch, Chautauqua, The MacGuffin, Nimrod, Mudfish, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Epiphany, and Slippery Elm. An ordained rabbi, Pam lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts.
