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.