Anele Rubin

FROM THE NOTEBOOKS

February 7, 1991

Mavericks, scuds

and scud busters

hellfire, patriot missiles

warthogs and warheads.

Here are the tanks

here the enemy bunkers

here our marines

kids from the Bronx and Iowa City

waiting in lines to make phone calls

buying soda pop and chips

in Saudi Arabia.

Here in Brooklyn

turning off the news

opening the window a crack

to get some air

on a rainy winter day

while the baby

sleeps on my bed

and my son

sleeps on the living room couch

to keep company with the cats

who can’t go in his room

because of the hamsters

I’m thinking of a man, a printer

I worked for years ago in L.A.

He had fought in Korea

and told me of his horror

the first time he stepped

over dead bodies.

He said you don’t feel

yourself changing.

You even get used to the smell.

Anele Rubin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Maryland, Nevada, Louisiana. She has degrees in English from Louisiana State University and New York University’s Graduate Writing Program, and a Certificate in Advanced Religious Studies, also from NYU. She taught English at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus for over thirty years, and currently lives in Upstate New York. Her book Trying to Speak, which won the Wick Poetry Prize, was published by Kent State University Press. She has had poems in Cutthroat, Poet Lore, New Ohio Review, Rattle, The Café Review, Miramar, Atlanta Review, Chattahoochee Review, Gargoyle, San Pedro River Review, Paterson Literary Review, and many other journals... Full Profile