Poetry

by Joanne Fay Brown

Ode to American Communists

                                1935 – 1965

On the sidewalk soapbox in East Flatbush
my mother called out lines from leaflets
by the Young Communist League,

collar of her brown woolen coat
buttoned tightly against the chill. Some,
carrying bags of herring, sour pickles, sweet cream

and strawberries, stopped to listen
as the sky grew dim and the lights came on
Workers Unite!

And they did, for a while, like bright coins
in a purse make a dollar.
There was some good in it

in the textile mills, steelworks,
actor’s studios, government bureaus
and there was a family feeling

around the table, set with borscht
where they tossed their hot-potato opinions,
their urgent, high-pitched bickering

fists hitting the table.
They’d read “The Communist Manifesto,”
they took the Fifth Amendment

they did not name names
though there were jobs at stake,
kids to feed.

Small ancillary soldiers, we sat
at the ends of the table, eating our kugel in silence.
One of the hard-liners sat opposite me

am I blocking your view? he snapped, as I looked
in the mirror behind his head. Fifteen and not keen
on dialectical materialism,

I’d been wondering if I was pretty.

Longing

— Oaxaca, 2012

The bus lurches up Calle Pino Suárez
to the pool where I swim and beyond
to Soriana supermarket, where
the other women are going.

Bloody Jesus hangs on a cross above
the driver’s head, his transistor radio
blares Me Gustas Tu as I sway,
holding tight to the handrails

in my tailored pants, linen jacket,
gym bag, toenails red-orange
pale feet in gold leather sandals.

They sit upright,
their muscled arms
around green and red plastic market bags
              they are brown, copper, flawless, it seems

One, a garden of flowers
stitched in her dress, speaks to me
              cali chìu? she asks
              chastened, I say, Disculpa, no entiendo

She persists        her eyes glisten
sun-rough lips beckon
and in my belly a call —
how intimate, lonely, like talking to God

The bus pulls to the curb        Me permite?
I murmur, as I make my way to the door.