This week’s Broke-Ass Poet is Barbara Berman, author of The Generosity of Stars (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and Currents (Three Mile Harbor Press, 2018).
From Wikimedia Commons.
STOCKTON, CA.For Geraldine Law Lee.
When planes buzzed during 1950s air showsshe recalled wartime bombing and froze.
She wanted her kids to feel safe, to succeed,and to know next to nothing of her fears andher aid to the Allies in occupied Hong Kong.
From Wikimedia Commons.
SAVED BY A DALLAS COWBOY
At customs in Dallas in 1995 my husbandlooked so foreign to a young crew cut officialin blue uniform whose grammar was not asgood as that of Cliff whose late parents wereChinese American citizens, that the officialkept telling Cliff he had filled out the wrongcustoms form, that he needed the form forimmigrants, and Cliff repeated in low tonesbracketed by unreturned “sirs” that he wasa United States citizen as his passport madeclear, and this went on for what seemed likehalf an hour but was probably three minutesuntil a tall, Stetson hatted white man behindus looked over and down at Cliff’s paperworkand said “He’s good,” to which the officialreplied “Yes, sir,” and stamped our passportswe thanked the cowboy who noddedas his own passport was stamped, and thenambled into the arms of a fair-skinned womandressed in denim who wore gorgeous bootsin black and turquoise leather.
Sept. 25, 1978. San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives.
THE HUMMINGBIRD
Hummingbirds see more red than humans andwhen I see one with wings working as they do,so fast I can’t name all its colors, it is blading asmall agapanthus I see in pale lavender, and Iimagine it sees a meaty crimson as it dives
deeper into the flower, and it’s all right that Ican’t go there because watching it dine givesme respite, and that’s what I’d tell it if I couldspeak its language, see what it sees.
Barbara Berman‘s poetry has appeared in The Rumpus, Lithub, Gargoyle, Women’s Voices For Change, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere, with a forthcoming essay in The Curator. She lives in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond District.
We’d like to get thematic with our poetry, beginning with some musings on the city we call home. Does the poetry you write practically scream San Francisco? Submit to [email protected] to get your work featured!
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