Paula Friedman

Two poems from the book:

You wouldn’t rent to us.
"They cry, they bring in all their friends"
you wouldn’t rent to a single mother and infant
"they mess the walls /
they mess"

and you, partying below late (was it
retaliation for the baby’s cries?)
petitioning the landlord
"’cause that baby’s always howling!"

You too, Welfare,
you, "too busy,"
you, later, boss who kept
your re-entry clerical way past daycare closing
--you, "school" system, making Fed bucks forcing
highstrung kiddies into "special" treatment
(sorry, special ed)
--to learn / nothing,
to learn /
nothing, only how
to act institutionalized.

--And you (you know who), shouting your
toddler into silence
so to keep a home, refusing to
ruin your body with tranqs
but pushing codeine syrup
so the coughing 2-year-old
might sleep (let you sleep) through the night
--though it never worked--

come take your medicine

you /
Momma / me,
you / people, landlords, structure,
there where you don’t
note the grown-up baby forever on his meds.

I had a dream
the other night. No-one
was living. Only
when the sun goes down
climbing from the dirt den
snuffing
ape-elbowed, hairy,
trying to remember
she seeks what clung, soft, with small cries.