“Have your eyes ever been crossed or turned out?” by Barbara Buckman Strasko, “My DNA” by Judy Catterton, and “Glass Half” by Lachlan Brooks

“Have your eyes ever been crossed or turned out?” by Barbara Buckman Strasko

At the eye doctor

I hesitate. Each day of my young life

I wanted to say what the world looked like

to me. And what they said was,

Don’t think about that now,

don’t see that way, don’t say ─

My great grandmother Rosa Vitoritto Greco remains inside of me

a voice that could not speak when

she lived. She was left to mind the grocery store

in Lambertville, while her husband drank at the Elks.

Last week my mother told me

We did whatever was asked of us and thought this was love.

As a child I wrote

“Oh my goodness!” in lipstick on my mother’s jewelry

box. I wanted her to see me,

my jewels, my goodness in words.

My grandmother Maria Concetta Vitoritto tells me

To love is to be a slave. We lived between raindrops, afraid to be

cast out with no place to go.

Daughters and their daughters have tried to swim

farther, to move into the sea.

But still my eyes learned to turn in, to cross,

to be crossed out.

I grew up in the fifties and sixties . The women in my life were strong but had very little power and had little freedom to know who they were. I was determined to get an education and over come their issues. I am and educator and poet. – Barbara Buckman Strasko

“My DNA,” Written after George Ella Lyons by Judy Catterton

I’m from the shtetls of Eastern Europe,

the charred earth under the hooves

of the Cossacks’ horses.

I’m from Kiev and Lvov, from bearded old men in prayer shawls

and women in long skirts, heads covered with kerchiefs.

My DNA travelled on foot, by oxcart, and ship,

a ship that shuttled strangers across an ocean,

strangers whose names are lost to history.

I’m from Brooklyn and the Bronx and the tenement houses

on the Lower East Side.

I’m from bagels and bialy stocker rolls and the yeasty smell

of Challah warm from ovens on Friday night.

I’m from bitter herbs and the bones of smoked fish.

I’m from the guttural sound of consonants crashing and

from harsh right angles of Cyrillic letters.

I’m from Grandma Ida’s treadle Singer Sewing Machine

and the sweatshops of 7th Avenue

where my mother labored to send the eldest brother to

college, a place she longed to go.

I don’t know how to read from right to left or bless the wine.

But the blood of Samuel and Saul, Jacob and Joseph courses through my veins.

I don’t daven or say koddish.

But I inhaled the smoke from the chimneys and choked

the dirt shoveled into the pits.

I clutched the hands of small children on cramped trains and

ate crusty bread with wormy soup.

I’m from the summit of Masada where a minyan cast lots

as a Legion swarmed below.

I’m from tears spilled

on the sterile soil of camps with no conscience.

I have no numbers on my arm, but millions stand behind me

touching my sleeve

urging me forward.

I am the 2015 recipient of a fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts in the Emerging Artist, non-fiction writing category. I teach essay and memoir for the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild. My essays and poems have appeared in a number of literary journals. – Judy Catterton

“Glass Half” by Lachlan Brooks

Empty is the reliquary of averted disappointment,

And the start of every assertion that the world of possible revelations

Is dictated by a terrible cap on quantity, that life wanted me

And what it wants from me is an admission, however late,

That there’s no fate besides the earth’s undated appetite

For our time and energy. The debt of living is self – contained:

A steady spending that spends itself as it’s itself obtained.

I am a New York-based writer and actor, and recent graduate of NYU, where I studied Drama at Tisch and at RADA in London, as well as minoring in Linguistics. I was homeschooled for my childhood education; most of my education has been self-directed. I speak/read Irish, German, and Latin. – Lachlan Brooks