Sharon Israel

Spring Squall

Squall stops.
Snowflakes slow.
Some stick on the pane.
My mother is fading.

(2020 “quarterly challenge” winner in four lines Poetry and Art Magazine)


Nursing Home Pantoum

I call to hear my mother’s voice
She eats so little, drinks Ensure
So sorry I can’t visit now
We say I love you at the end

She eats so little, drinks Ensure
I keep disaster from my voice
We say I love you at the end
She worries that I’m not all right

I keep disaster from my voice
I hear fear in every word
She worries that I’m not all right
Everyone’s so strange here

I hear fear in every word
I’m in a hospital, she thinks
Everyone’s so strange here
Nursing staff wear bunny suits.

I’m in a hospital, she thinks
Friends disappear from the dining room
Nursing staff wear bunny suits
The dead visit her in dreams

Friends disappear from the dining room
I call to hear my mother’s voice
The dead visit her in dreams
So sorry I can’t visit now

(Chronogram, May, 2020)


Aunt Wapiti – Woman With Antlers

Auntie dresses in shot
lavender silk, careful
not to rip the precious frock
on her plush-boned head.

Oh, for a nice cup of tea!

Auntie likes to sit sedately
in the withdrawing room,
ecru ribbons festooning her antlers.

Her guests arrive.

They watch Auntie’s
sapien fingers detach
skewered scones and cakes
from her thorny crown,
nestle them on plates alive
with woodland scenes.

Often, on wash day,
Auntie stands
amid fresh breezes
while doilies and tea
towels dry on her
bony effusions.

“Where is the window to my heart?”

Auntie remembers her birth,
placenta covering
her like an umbrella.

She remembers knobby
stubs piercing skin,
new vascular velvet
insatiable for blood.
Blood stolen from new
breasts, widening hips.

It was time now

for attar of marsh, wetland,
time to stretch
like a quadraped,
to forage dawn and dusk
for grasses, shrubs and forbs.

To revel in the clash of horn.

(Flatbush Review, Issue 6, 2022)


About the Author

Sharon Israel hosts the WIOX radio show and podcast Planet Poet-Words in Space. Sharon’s chapbook, Voice Lesson, was published by Post Traumatic Press (2017). Her newest work currently appears in Flatbush Review. Sharon was an early recipient of Brooklyn College’s Leonard B. Hecht Poetry Explication Award, a “Best of the Net 2016” nominee and a 2020 “quarterly challenge” winner in four lines Poetry and Art Magazine. Sharon has a B.A. from Brooklyn College, an M.S. from the New School and certification from Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA).

Website: Sharonisraelpoet.com
Podcast: Planet Poet-Words in Space- on Google, Apple, Spotify, website

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