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Poetry by
Miriam Kotzin


Internal Dialog by Paul Bleiweis

The fishwife

continues her familiar harangue,
shameless through the streets.

I catch sight of myself
in a shop window.
Even in this distorted reflection
my agitation is obvious.

I do not choose to stare her down.
Nothing good can come from looking
a madwoman in the face.



Taxis

The responsive movement of an organism toward or away from an external stimulus.
                                             American Heritage Dictionary

Because nothing has changed I run out
into traffic, like other women hailing taxis.
Because nothing has changed I stare into
the rearview mirror, like other women riding in taxis.
Because nothing has changed I call out
in my sleep, like other women hailing taxis.
Because nothing has changed I curl into
a corner, like other women riding in taxis.
Because nothing has changed I run out
of excuses, like other women hailing taxis.
Because nothing has changed I change into
a new woman, like other women riding in taxis.
Because nothing has changed I hold out
false hope like other women hailing taxis.

Because nothing has changed I wear
mirrored sunglasses.
Nothing has changed because I wear
mirrored sunglasses.
Because nothing has changed you can
still see yourself.
Because nothing has changed you can
still see yourself in my eyes.
You can see yourself in my eyes
because nothing has changed
because nothing has changed
because I wear mirrored sunglasses
you can still see yourself in my eyes.
Because nothing has changed, I fall out
of love, like other women riding in taxis.



Ritual

I dust books, polish silver,
wash crystal, wax furniture,
wanting everything you take away
to be perfectly cared for,
wanting to be free
from reproaches.

The place is piled with things.
Cartons glut the rooms and spill
into the hall under the eyes
of neighbors.

Past midnight,
all our feeling squandered,
we sleep.

You can't get the keys out of the case,
and hand it to me to break
my nails, cursing our incompetence.
We both know
you'll never return
but I want to lock you out.
The movers haul away what's left.
Everything of value you
carried off long ago.

The men unroll mats on the floor
and lay out your suits and your coats.
These they cart unceremoniously
like inconvenient corpses
from a garden party.
I want to be wearing hat and gloves.

The rooms are stripped bare,
the closets emptied,
the drawers twice turned.
Nothing is left to muffle the echoes
in these high-ceilinged spaces.
Alone now, at last I can begin
to know my place.




on Taxis
I’d come across the term “taxis,” and, of course, it looked like the plural of  “taxi.”  I was sitting in my office, watching the stream of rush-hour traffic, and something clicked with what some critic (whose name I can’t remember) called “the-distraught-woman-hailing-a taxi school of writing.” Influenced by Philip Glass, I suppose, I was playing with permutations. Besides, I really did own a pair of mirrored aviator shades, and I thought they deserved a place in a poem.

on Ritual
One door opens and another door closes. Or something like that.  I’d been teaching Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party,” and a departure is like a death.

on Fishwife
In an urban setting, hearing a solitary walker talking or yelling was common even before the days of Bluetooth.  Everyone talks to himself—but it’s preferable to be silent when having such a conference.  And polite.  So this poem is about being afraid of being neither.  Or maybe it’s the influence of Robert Burns...