I had a party on the roof today to honor my daughter's goodbye to pre-K and hello to K

K as in Kindergarden

In Scarsdale it is called a stepping up party

for us it was called "Aurelia's goodbye to all her friends party"

Nine children in the windy summer sun

lined up for makeup

Aurelia chose a vampire

Leandro had a snake drawn in the center of his brow

how suitable for my Egyption prince

Goofy Gary had clown shoes

big floppy over-sized

ones

and a bit of a New York "watch it" to his tone when the kid pulled on his bow tie.

That's OK

he's real

I loved his hankerchief that wouldn't disappear five times it didn't work

on purpose

until everybody everybody said

igby something wiggie the magic words

he asked the kids what are the magic words

one kid said abracadabra and aurelia raised her hand and said HoCus Pocus

she is so smart.

no they were

iggy ziggy wiggie

which kept reminding me of For Esme with Love and Squalor

the iggy (igby) word mixed with wiggie

wiggie is actually my husbands nickname at work

but to me he is GiGi

The wind was perfect

a couple of balloons disappeared, one I traced over the Level Club, the building next to the Ansonia that must have competed for grandure back in the day when Babe Ruth and Caruso shared an elevator.

What will it be like to remember this day

It was so lovely over the city, with the park in one view, those two doric towers and The River

We were on this wooden deck

A lovely little girl poured herself two unsweetened cold green teas, I knew she wouldn't like it, and the yogurt drink, which I drank

There were lots and lots of cookies and juice boxes

Leandro had a balloon hat

made of a yellow heart

blue stalks and a red halo

and I felt like I kept saying I need you to hold me to my husband, as if I were a cat, just running up at his shin underfoot

but I probably was more occupied pulling it all off

interwoven wire
corrogated steel

brass grills
iron gratings
rusted copper
molten silver
vented aluminum
flattened alloys

Beaten and cut
traced and realized
jiggled and wiggled
fitted and shaken
melted and scratched
prodded and glossed
edged
turned
screwed
bolted
derived
split
cooled
pounded
and abrased

I am a grateful dollop of meringue
to put under your tongue and feel dissolve
To stain the clouds with love, and trace outlines

in the tall grass. To narrow all angles

and hover over maple groves, to lie

tinglingly zipped into my denser self

Squared by copper
I bend into matte
toccami nel cuore
non ho più spazio per amore
sono spenta
dalle candele non ce vento qui
l'aria gira nella bicicletta
ma sopra sono diventata panna

Hear me/mi senti?

There is a gap between C3 and C4, behind my larynx

a blue foam room and a shaving cream slide
give way to my stomach

Under my jaw are yellow tight ropes

My ears are wind tunnels

that ache and hiss

A scourge travels up my eye escalator

and enters the scalding nasal passage

Simmering drops collect under my eardrum

forming impressions of my waning pallor

My toes wiggle in the ashes

In this chilly Autumn

I hide fingers away
and slide them into my intercostal pockets

also known as my empty ribs

Can anybody hear me

Why is this cloud yellow?

Can Indigo be so lovely

I look beyond the flood lights at my indigo infinity

obviously I block out the chimneys

obviously

and I play with The One Me, my clipped hair.

that I set aside and hid in the rail of a wooden bunk

It is intermixed with my mother's strands

I know she can feel me around her this way

all the single strands intertwining

Kissing me like

she does at night in the linen sheets

Did

with my night light still on

How cliche

I could hear her playing my favorite Etudes

and I would imagine I was George Sand

That I was in bed with Chopin

Back then

To continue now is hopeless, my only words are

crescendo and largo

The piano, outside my door, and my linen,

crisp and cold

fold me

We are between my fingers
enfolded around my palm


listening to the indigo sky

The c sharp and her frozen brown wave

Andante
Largo

andate al lago?

al lago

Come andate?

Andante
andate in treno?

andate

Sono andati furiosamente nel fuoco

Paolina Weber

2/13/11

for Giovanna Friedman Ukleja who survived Auchwitz at 16 with Romano Ukleja, a polish worker, who saved her in the line. When Auschwitz was liberated they hitchiked to my grandparents in Rome.She told me they had on German nazi uniforms and that my grandfather took them straight to Giolitti, near the Pantheon, for ice cream.

*Translation from Italian Music Tempo and colloquial:

andante=walking (moderately slow)

Largo=broad (slow and dignified)

andate al lago?= are you going to the Lake?

al lago (the lake)...

Come andate? =How?

andate (moderately slow (solemmo))
andate in treno?= you go by train.

andate=go, then go.

sono andati furiosamente nel fuoco=they went furiously into the fire

I love my shredder

Confetti for Casanova

In Piazza San Marco

Shivering under his lace

I spliced up my statements

I frazzled my bills

I spit murky water

into acrid snow

The fauna have receded

I flee to the pine forest

Where only the deer can see what I stole:

my figs

my nails

my teeth

These offerings

I give to Orestes

to strip me of solicitousness

to cleans me of smell

to burn my longing

Casanova

Please bring me to

the Monastery closet

on San Lazzaro

Take me in your narrow boat

We breath the lagoons air and ride red waves

I push my heart beyond spine

The name Aurelia comes fom golden light
But even more she is my favorite street, Via Aurelia, that ribbons up the side of Tuscany by the sea.
My favorite highway on earth.

And her brother Leandro
means lion man I know
Or from Shakespeare I know
Just like Aurelia is Marcus Aurelius I know.

But mostly Leandro is the line of Oleanders
that line the inside of this Mediterranean highway
Oleanders that accompany me all the way up the dry rosemary coast of the Maremma


That is where your brother came from
He is the flower*, oleandro, that accompanies you
on your way through

*Oleanders are white and pink flowering bushes with sturdy branches and consistent buds

Siblings

The clothes are folded away and the bracelets placed in the same cardboard box decorated like a valise
where my tiny premature bracelet the size of four fingers is still held
and now your brother's bracelet
Me, the only child
has created these two
bracelets
in hospital snaps and democratic print
I made siblings
and gave them each other to love

Birth

I have always known you
would emerge
Blown in on a high blizzard
with a golden crown of triumph
I will never let you go my child I am here

conception

The earth opens inside me
and all glistens
I hear the strings note plant
against its walls
and all is open
a
rrest
ed and
co
lapsed


and in that millisecond of three days
I grip into this golden soil and grow

Out of nowhere is everything
as if I were always here and
foretold



for my friend