More "Poetic" Success for UFT Player Lee Schwartz

UFT Players Executive Board member, Lee Schwartz's poem, 65 is a Speed Trap, will appear in the July 2012 issue of Passage. She has also been chosen to participate in a juried poetry class at the 92nd St. Y. Congratulations, Lee.

65 is a SPEED TRAP

Today my Medicare card came,

red, white and blue

like the flag

unfurling at Kennedy’s funeral, 

carefully refolded and presented

like a box of candy.

I know all the cherry centers

have been eaten,

the plutocrats taking over my final stages

I’m a dog climbing out of the surf, 

hair matted down,

the body skeletal and puppyish.

Someone in St. Paul now navigates

my out-patient mental health status,

my pleasure / pain centers,

my scribbles of shame. 

A pilgrim in a lost caravan;

the Empire is my final dance partner.

Unit #072-34-4639

I’ve never had an abortion,

I did have a cesarean, the newborn

had to be removed by force.

The ice melting, the salmon confused,

she swam laps in my mycelium moon. 

And there was afterwards

while the playground moms chatted,

that sharp tang of freedom, mixed with loss,

my daughter, rising like wild maize.

I fold my hands and notice the brown spots

on fingers that remember just where to find the banister, 

and then the steps.