Excellent Swimmers With Impeccable Form Innocent and Chaste

it was on the pier

at Jackson’s Point

in the mid-summer heat

pretending to shade their eyes

secure in the blind

of their separate gangs

skin tanned and glistening

bathing suits wet

both fit and both excellent

swimmers with impeccable form

race to the buoy and back

and the winner is

forgotten as she  pulls off

the white  bathing cap

and shakes the curls

back into her raven hair

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire
I’m on fire

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
I’m on fire

desire trumps all religion

and parental imperative

they had nothing to say but

their beauty was undeniable

standing beside each other on the alter

under the canopy

outrage already brewing

the Russians and the Poles

never meant to get along

his father inviting one hundred

more to the wedding

and forgetting

to tell her parents

who were picking up the tab

and there were no seats

for honoured guests

the Gentile politicians

and the bankers

and chaos ensued

and that was only the ceremony

and through the evening

it  got much worse

and we would hear about it often

how his parents

first cousins from the shtetl

in Poland

had no class

though the mother

with a loving heart in disrepair

warm and giving would die

much too soon

while the father

a true believer prayed

three times a day

to a God he would never know

a furrier making garments

to stave off the cold

Persian lamb, muskrat, beaver,

mink and Alaska seal

ownership alone

was a declaration of prosperity

in this new land

both bleak and hostile

but not as hostile as Poland

not as dangerous to the man

with his prayer book hurrying

through the shadows

the sun lit streets

draped in darkness

to say Kaddish

for a mother or a wife

no pogroms or purges in this place

simply the shortened day

and the descending chill of indifference

her parents came from

Kiev and Odessa

and far apart they would remain

once  all the children were born

one in Belgium

on the way over

and three at the end

of the world’s longest road

where he ran a  dry goods store

lent money, gambled high stakes, won

and lost a fortune

and she a sullen introvert

was devoted only

to the children

in time he sent them all away

to Toronto

and stayed above the store

with its green linoleum floor

and the arborite table

and the mistress speaking French

the house by the lake sold

in exchange for one

with a view

on  a hill close

to Castle Loma 

the Cossacks

back in the old country

had a way of subverting 

religious impulse

whether with a pitch fork or a sword

and prayer came on days marked

by the cycles of the moon

in rooms adorned with symbols

of  half remembered stories

the women seated above the men

wearing their finest clothes

growing up in the north

they kept a shovel inside

the door to carve  a way

through the snow

leaving her with a different sense of God

than him on Euclid Street

his grandmother with an ax

killing the Friday night chicken

out in the yard

in the way that it was written

she wanted a bacon sandwich on white toast

with butter and mayonnaise

it was something he would never comprehend

choking on religious superstition

he offered little resistance

to the leash pulled tight

by an unseen hand

on a good night in their new house

in the newly built suburb

of treeless streets

at the city limits

there might be laughter 

on a Sunday night

watching Ed Sullivan on TV

and they might retreat

after the kids were in bed

and though there was never

enough sex for him

and always too much for her

there was a palpable heat

burning into the darkness

and bringing light to the household

like a comet passing through

a distant galaxy

once or twice a year

but rarely would it remain

civil with cruel words

enflamed with hate

emanating from behind closed doors

they hated themselves

for the trap they were in

and they hated each other

for springing it

love and desire slipping

from their grasp

sinking to the bottom

visible and out of reach

never enough money

since he left school

and went to work for his father

doling out a salary

that came in a brown envelope

like the cutters and the sewers on the floor

with strings of failed promise

and guilt attached

and always some back handed

comment about the wife

whose spending was unending

and for why does she need that hat, dress, coat, car, piano, TV, set of dishes

or  sterling silver cutlery

and religion with its rules

written back in time

of the bicameral mind

and still beyond

a shadow of a doubt

each believer an authority deflecting

and refusing all questions

the wisdom of the holy one

blessed be he

was absolute

and they fought

at the table

resistance and revolution

for the sake

of the children

he wanting them cut

and pasted into the family

ledger of belief

she wanting them born to freedom

the capacity to think and chose

and always this fight would erupt

on the most holy day

and night with screams

and the car tires spinning

in the gravel drive

while she sped away

for some reprieve

bastard

bitch

son of a whore

cunt

and so it is said

you shall repent

on this day and atone

for all your sins

it took them thirty years

to wring the last drop of life

out of their union

and leave us with the residue

shoveling it into the plastic pails

we used as children

at the beach

the shovels bending

with the weight of each load

and  it would take a thousand trips

up and down the cellar stairs

to eliminate the dampness and the stench

the human waste

Stephen Zeifman