When I Recall Days
When I recall days built of adamantine rock & then
those made of talc, hours hiking cactus-lined paths
or riding a subway to midtown—if I trace all the streets
I’ve Iived on, people across the hall, neighbors down
the block, perhaps ridiculous, perhaps a fright, houses
topped by widow’s walks & all the animals under a late
moonrise, prowling bears pawing the too-soon blueberry
patch, great horned owls hooting & scorning & rabbits
running to the bloodied stone wall—when I gaze upon this
assemblage, these Indonesian scorpions, pheasant feathers,
Apache Tears, oil-stained invitations to the backbiters’ ball,
if I try to find meaning when I think of all the squares of
pavement, seeds I’ve sown in the dark, the soil itself, how
it’s best to plant when crumbly, flowers that bloomed a week
or less, those lilies-of-the-valley vanishing in three days time,
& the cucumber & snap beans eaten & shared—unspeakable
prickly beauty, intractable struggle, the idea that experience
never leaves the body, that it glows in diminished light, the
storms brewing, those that passed, tree pollen puddling in a
helix of orange, & all the starts & stops, friends I have, those
I’ve lost, what I thought of others & what others thought of me—
when I try to remember, when I awake again & again, &
suddenly see my reflection, a boy walking by a store window,
a grotesque staring back, a kid playing skee-ball with walnuts
in a cutout shoebox & the oblivious ones, the ignominious ones,
the very breath—even when I’m dreaming, even then, there are
the children, lovers, flesh & bone
Howard Faerstein’s newest collection, Googootz and Other Poems, published by Press 53, came out in 2018. His first book, Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn, was published in 2013. His work can be found in numerous journals including Great River Review, Nimrod, CutThroat, Rattle, upstreet, Mudfish and online in Gris-Gris, Peacock Journal, and Connotation. He is Associate Poetry Editor of CutThroat, A Journal of the Arts. After living in Brooklyn for fifty years, he now lives in Florence, Massachusetts.