Myra Shapiro

On Being Pushed When I Was Seven

He threw me in the bay
and I refused to rise.
A friend convinced him
children swim by nature.
So would I. His child,
daughter of the show-off
fighter, I held myself
down, damned
if I’d perform
for any father’s friend
who never even glanced
at me. And down there
I took the time to
swear and plan and look
at bubbles coming
from my mouth.
Those men who pulled me out,
they had to pump
like mad. They were the ones
who had to dance.

© 2007 Myra Shapiro
from Four Sublets: Becoming a Poet in New York

Marriage: February 1953

The night before our wedding day I took
A fit. My mother, who said she hadn’t cried
Like that when her first baby died, shook
Me – too many fittings? showers? – to take pride
In my fine man, in what I’d planned: angora
Sweater, dinners by candlelight, perfume
On my arms, White Shoulders, its aroma
Would take us to an island place, a room
Unknown, our very own. Pioneers. Married
I cooked, he waited to be fed. His work
Did not go well, we moved. Pumpkin-headed
I wandered aisles, staring. Pick up. Put back.
Spring. On Hibiscus Court hibiscus bloomed.
I longed to be back home, getting married.

In Greenwich Village on Halloween We Talk of Love

Dearest H., you’d have roared and carried on; hearty
laugher that you are, you would have clapped to see

such happiness. A high-heeled man in a silver sheath
threw chocolate kisses; a woman, wrapped paper leaf,

uncurled, became an undulating tongue of green snake –
and an old man who leaned as if to kiss my cheek
coughed golddust in my face. All night I sparkled.

But what I started to say, before the parade
got underway, had to do with love. The way

I love you. Waiting for the hoopla, I told my friend
I love you as the shore the wave. Set to marry

in December she wants to talk of love, what we
two do that’s lasting. I said I love your going out
and I know you're coming back. As simple as that –

as putting on your robe – don’t laugh – to be a nun
parading with a book, with women friends in sisterly

devotion, always knowing there’s another, a man
(you) who gives me something else – less intensity?

touch, release. Fun – but weird to think of ordinary
love that way – right there on Bank where we once fought
about the first apartment – so scared we'd separate –