Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing, Wednesday a little more nothing.
--Tuli Kupferberg

Tuli Kupferberg and I are dancing.
He is light-years ahead of me,
Maybe old as twenty.
I myself cannot be
Many moons past eight.

We aren't holding hands exactly,
Only our fingertips touch.
They are sticky. We've been noshing
Messy chunks of halvah,
Melting chocolate gelt.

Mr. Slowpoke, my uncle Phil,
Fresh from a stretch in eternity,
Roller-skates across the floor
On wheels of salted bagels.
"Kam mit tsores!" he calls to us,

And time, the way it does in dreams,
Whirls by, dreidel-like,
Revealing all its sides
To me.

I am... I am distracted by
Kaleidoscopic visions
And winks from my mind's eye.

Tuli, meanwhile, is spieling
His nada, his gornisht, his nothing.

I am turned around.

Cracked and scratched beyond repair,
One of my favorite 78s
Is skipping like mad past all the best parts,
Bucking the needle at every turn,
Knocking it out of the groove.

Peggy Landsman grew up near New York City and always spent a lot of time there.  After graduating from high school, she lived for several months in the Bronx.  The first poetry reading she ever took part in was at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.  Her poetry and prose has been widely published in both online and print literary journals and anthologies, including Calyx, Bridges (Indiana University Press), and The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press).

---

Spread the word

Average user rating

   (1 vote)

Display 1 of 1 comments