My dad squandered the money I received
in bar mitzvah gifts on a series of bad bets.
Then my mom lost a breast to cancer. I was
the oldest child still at home. Debt collectors
phoned the house at all hours, sent threatening
letters, pounded on the door. My mom went
into hospice care. I circled the girls at school
like a bee circling a pot of early spring flowers –
frosty pansies. The ending was inevitable.
“Yes,” someone said, “but is it good for the Jews?”
I’ve lived my whole life with strands of barbed wire
wrapped like strangling vines around my heart.
Howie Good's latest poetry collection, True Crime, was published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.
Love this poem; each line is perfection, building forward momentum to that powerful last stanza (strangling vines), which immediately conjures, at least for me, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteThe first stanza could easily be an intro narration to a great film such as Ray Liotta's Henry Hill in Goodfellas. I see it all; feel it all.