CONTENTS
EARLY WORK (1971)
Searching for My Father's Body
The Widow and Daughter
FROM PERIODS OF STRESS (1975)
I
during the war
pows
herr captain
death camp
about my father
perspectives on the second world war
II
conditions
periods of stress
please don't touch me
dinosaurs and larger issues
when the heart fails
it was good
flesh is cold
they're always curious
they did not build wings for them
the fish
III
in between
the house
blending
edges
IV
aesthetic distance
self-dialogues
TWO SISTERS (1978)
Helen and Eva Hesse: An Introduction
Two Sisters: A Monologue
KEEPER OF ACCOUNTS (1982)
I From the Monkey House and Other Cages
Monkey 1
Monkey 2
II Different Enclosures
Contexts
Work Sonnets
Work Sonnets
Notes
A Monologue about a Dialogue
A Poem for Judy beginning a new job
III Urban Flowers
Mnemonic Devices: Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, 1981
Royal Pearl
Lithops
Aesthetics
Winter Light
Oleander
Cactus
Abutilon in Bloom
IV Inhospitable Soil
Glimpses of the Outside
A Place
A Visit
A Place in Time
Mourning
Bashert
These words are dedicated to those who died
These words are dedicated to those who survived
Poland, 1944: My mother is walking down a road
Chicago, 1964: I am walking home alone at midnight
Brooklyn, 1971: I am almost equidistant from two continents
Cherry Plain, 1981: I have become a keeper of accounts
Solitary Acts
A FEW WORDS IN THE MOTHER TONGUE (1983-1990)
I cannot swim
Di rayze aheym/The journey home
1. Der fentster/The window
2. Vider a mol/Once again
3. Zi flit/She flies
4 A beys-oylem/A cemetery
5. Kashes/Questions
6. Zi shemt zihk/She is ashamed
7. In der fremd/Among strangers
8. Di tsung/The tongue
9. Di rayze aheym/The journey home
Etlekhe verter oyf mame-loshn/ A few words in the mother tongue
Fradel Schtok
Der mames shabosim/My Mother's Sabbath Days
'67 Remembered
Warsaw, 1983: Umschlagplatz
East Jerusalem, 1987: Bet Shalom (House of Peace)
HER BIRTH AND LATER YEARS (1990-2021)
Footnotes
March 1939: Warsaw, Poland
Warsaw 1941: The story of her birth
Pesakh: Reynolda Gardens, Winston Salem
1. Winter
2. Spring
3. The Seder Table
Mitsrayim: Goat Dream
Der soyne/The Enemy: An Interview in Gaza
In memory of Razan al-Najjar
Instructions of the dying elder
Dearest Friend: Regarding Esther Frumkin
Millet's Flight of Crows
Five ways to view a drawing
Mourning Cycle
Parsing the question
This House
Liberation of the roses
Trees
wound: a memory
Wind chime
Grief changes and doesn't
Entering the stream
between shadow and night: a treatise on loneliness
And Death Is Always with Us
For Jean Swallow: whom I barely knew
My mother at 99: Looking for home
my mother's loveseat
July 22: Geology
Jamaica Wildlife Preserve: September
The old poet cycle
The old poet reconsiders acting
The old poet tries unsuccessfully to bring/chaos back into her order
The old poet and Orion
The old poet's become tired
The old poet remembers the immigrant girl
Grief: Brunswick Public Library, Maine
Der fremder in der fremd
Glossary and References
Notes
Index of titles
Credits
Acknowledgments
