Pitching troop ship from Germany flowing
    toward Fourteenth Street, New York City,
the trains to Merselis Avenue, Clifton, New Jersey

			     where Mother throws Father’s 
          valise into the river, zigs 
                            from man 

to man, jumps Mumchy and me
    from bed to bed, the boxes, shopping bags,
                   to pack and repack

losing little things—my marbles,
      Mumchy’s newspapers, a family prayerbook
                   Mother would not return to Father,

63 Grove, Passaic—car keys somewhere
     in the basement.  We 
                   dodge collectors, set

        mousetraps that spring
on rats, lay down blue powder for roaches
                    views of bricks,

   parking lots, junk yard, from so many
windows, flipping through rooms
                   like a deck 

of missing cards—twenty-one
       condemned houses, apartments on top 
               floors, cold-water flats—

185 Madison, 14 Hamilton—always 
                  afraid of the next lurch, next eviction,     
          going going the only safety 

                    we know, trailing 
behind us, the long chain
               and smash of the wrecking ball.

Susanna Rich is a bilingual Hungarian-American poet, Fulbright Fellow in Creative Writing (Hungary), and Collegium Budapest Fellow. With two Emmy Award nominations for poetry, and over a thousand performance and publication credits, Susanna is author of five poetry collections, most recently Beware the House and SHOUT! Poetry for Suffrage. “Keep Moving” appears in Susanna’s manuscript “Still Hungary,” exploring her grandmother’s life as a World War II immigrant to America.

Appears In

Cagibi Issue 28