Sunday, June 1, 2014

Hal Sirowitz- Three Poems


One Minus One
 
Just because you
love me, she said,
doesn't mean I love you.
One minus one equals
zero - a new number.
And that's what you
mean to me - a zero.
But don't take it
personally. Take it
in a  numerological
fashion. Becoming
my zero is underrated.
  
 
 
Starting with a Landscape
 
The sky turned a darker
blue but the color of her cheeks
didn't change - flushed. Why
did love have to be so difficult?
We had so much in common.
We were both creative types,
though I didn't think much
of her output. She put her
artistic abilities into making cakes.
All I wanted was to eat her art work.
She couldn't say the same about my art.
 
 
 
The Dog Magnet
 
Most of the dogs
in the neighborhood
loved my father. I
didn't know why.
Whenever he came
to visit the neighbors
their dogs would bark
and jump for glee. Then,
you'd hear an echo of dogs
on the next block chiming in.
He was a dog magnet. He
didn't have the same effect
on my mother. She might
have barked at him a few times,
but always in an instructive mode,
never out of sheer delight. One day
a dog was so delighted to see him,
that it forgot its years of training
and urinated on the floor. My
father would take responsibility
for the dog's actions and wipe up
the puddle. In a million years I
couldn't imagine mother putting herself
in that position, dependent on his kindness.

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