The Ghosts of My Grandmothers Convene
We bathe in cold streams, prepare beet salad
with scallions & fresh dandelion greens.
We occupy an abandoned house near the shore,
far from New York City.
We hear water up close,
hold a darkened mirror to our chins—
marigold yellow,
Sylvester & the Magic Pebble sky.
We fill cracks with laughter, off-kilter jokes:
There’s three stages in life: young, middle age, & you look so good.
We look better than swans & goats—admit that—
but our mushroom skin’s a dead giveaway.
So pale, we hang clothes on the line,
watch them flap like old newspaper,
lean against willow bark,
branches low as broken fingers.
What’s the matter?
Don’t despair—we no longer have names.
Name what you’ve lost so it lives—
pencil-thin skirt, Ruth Gordon, Sir Paul,
blackbirds flapping loose from their cages.
We do not bleed, but we scar, babble,
boil meatballs & chicken fricassee,
assemble prune & cheese danish,
blink faster to see you better.
We catalogue assumptions on index cards
in silver boxes,
add sparkles to salute what never served us,
wish it well.
We hoard treasures in dresser drawers—
mothballs & mezuzahs, harmonicas
& lavender sachets,
compacts, postcards from fifty nations
our family carried in their lifetimes.
Follow the long tail of Chile,
the golden Dome of the Rock.
We say Nu, Zay gezunt & Gotenyu,
snap our fingers when we spill salt.
Vey iz mir.
Your mother should leave the house more,
paint it holy blue.
As for you, Sheyn Meydele, have compassion
for immigrants—our parents sailed
from faraway lands, too.
Value desire & wildflowers. When the moon rises,
swim among tree stumps,
wiggle through fields of aubergine
on a star-pinned night,
pinpricks of light at the bottom of your bowl.
If we are worth remembering,
take out your long scarves & dance with us.
Dance until you can dance
no more,
until the apricot sun
erases your questions.
Fun a Tsebrokene Vaze, a Blum Nokh Vakst
From a broken vase, a flower still grows
Learning Yiddish is daunting
but I’m determined to overcome limitations
to orbit the black hole
of loving something
that doesn’t love you back
I’m learning the mameloshn
to connect with my ancestors
but I often ask myself
who I will speak to one-on-one
besides a tutor or teacher
People say do it for yourself
but if I can’t pass it on
to my children
what good is it
I wear borrowed feathers
my grandparents’ silence
I am the ache of seagulls
diving for the invisible
I am phonemes and morphemes
gathered from a cold pond
stripped feathers that beg for flight
Yesterday I sobbed—
I’m the motherland in reverse
When translating a poem
I remember:
waltz is not the same as wobble
Susan Michele Coronel’s debut collection, In the Needle, A Woman (Finishing Line Press, 2025), won the 2024 Donna Wolf Palacio Poetry Prize, with three poems nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in journals including Gone Lawn, MOM Egg Review, Pedestal, Spillway 29, and SWWIM. In 2023, she won the Massachusetts Poetry Festival’s First Poem Award. She lives and writes in New York City.
