Washington Street/Mother Cabrini High School

• She's wearing a red coat,the church lady said to her one-way walkie talkie/Dad just stayed in his pew genuflecting/there is no way out/a shrine w/ gold icons/no Torah cabinet.

Green water in the canal/rippling ice/Melisa growing/her baby smiling/the life of the artist is continuing to be interesting despite the frustration o

of flowers grown in the the snow/yellow Marigolds/Where are the Hyacinth bulbs. The plaster statues and McCoy cookie jars sit nicely on the card-table/an era of creating Steve's second novel The Poet is complete/4000 hrs of typing in the pappersroon with no heat in -30/and the rewriting in the most vicarious of situations/no money stashed for a rainyday/no comfort as the parents used to say/just the kids/calling and padding our palms with shekels/a hard reciprocation for forty years of pain/struggle and humiliation/I am now at Social Services receiving my pension plan-$240.00 a month for the rest of my days awarded monthly/I can't wait for the first installment. There are women here who get cash payouts/(I wonder how you get that) one lady is counting her $67.98. The street yield an kind of rough torrent. I stood in Barnes'n Nobles and read Ina May Gaskin's new book on home birth Csections/ now at night I hold my belly and wonder how deep one must cut right above the pubis to pull the baby out/the umbilicus long and white like those carnival balloons one makes crowns or Poodles out of twisting them.

What can be said that hasn't already been rehashed

• We triffled through this sequence/you drew for seventy hours and I sat in the cold room and flipped through poems/trying to find one extraordinary piece to publish in this year's edition of "Frost". The children scrapped around working to their capacity/earning prestige and honors from their perspective fields. We wanted to all be together for one night but the hotel refused us/No bohemian blood allowed here/If the parents have ever been involved with long-haired activities/they are not welcome. And so we keep running.