Virginia Konchan
La Vie
The slot where the milk bottles
used to flow freely at the house
of my grandmother in Old Brooklyn,
a neighborhood of Cleveland
densely populated by Polish
and Slovenian immigrants,
is now sealed shut. This is the hour
of lead, milk replaced by the venom
of exotic serpents. Scratch that.
Quotidian serpents, bottom-feeders
who rise to wealth and power
through exploitation and lies.
I can fly, we said as kids,
cape fluttering as we stood
at the helm of the boat,
if we were lucky enough
to know someone with a boat.
Life with its trembling wraith
and pre-war memorabilia.
Life with its sorrow, its bleed.
Imagination, invagination:
both need seed money.
Had we but world
enough, and time.
Life with its rugged cross,
its whimper, its need.