I am named after my grandmother Paulina Friedman.

The Friedman's were jewish. 

This is the first time I ever wrote this down.  

My grandmother's Polish family lived in Warsaw and were sent to Lotz and from there they died in Auschwitz.

I don't ever acknowledge this because I was never told this fact.

I can't trace my ancestors. I can't pray for them in Hebrew, I can't even walk into a temple.  

My grandmother's niece was Giovanna Ukleja.  She married Roman Ukleja when they left Auchwitz, one of the few who survived.  I have been told that they met when he pulled her out of the line to the showers.  He was a Polish worker in the camp. 

I walked by the monument to the relatives of Auschwitz survivors my whole life, on Riverside and 83 Street, by the flower bed at the end of the path that starts at 96th street.  I learned to ride my bike on this path.   

I wish I could explain the sense of not belonging that I feel.  In a neighborhood where everyone is Jewish and I don't have the words to say I am one of you.  I am always floating under the Jewish people.  

I am an origami

Marriage is not like a math equation

Given a) exploitation

over, he doesn't pay for anything

then, b) neglect squared by n

n being we never go out

minus that time I ate those crazy good mushrooms at x

x being the insanely expensive restaurant on 19th street off Park

find x (who's name I forget)

Daddy used to live in a loft right down the street

I hate that whole street

How he forgot his weekend so I

called

his assistant from a pay phone

and she took me to Brooklyn to sleep under her big Boxer

who felt droolly nice

Apply this to the present

(Oh, the name for x is Craft)

When one is inside a Marriage Box

small things are mood altering,

admiring the Spring 2011 Marc Jacobs white silk dress

with happy big red yellow orange stripes in diagonal

Or wondering how I can transform the shower curtains I saw at Anthropologie into my window curtains (can shower curtains be so nice?)

Hypothetical curtains defined: layers of a blue Fez (Morocco) divided by white frilly frills that are more (the dog) Cock-a-Poo than linen

jingle

small things get me through the day.

And then I find myself declaring "absolutes"

in the vein of "I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore"

Confide (pause) I am exploited

Cry (not audibly) at the dive Big Nicks

(you gotta be from the Upper West Side to know about their free pickles.)

as I say to my husband:

I wanted a marriage that was EXPANSIVE,

to go to india

"you want to go to India?"

Unsaid: to go back to Madurai, east of Madras and rent a place by the sea

To EXPAND my world not become an origami

I am an origami

I made myself into an origami from this box

I like this pickle.

It was all about that he was tall

and that he was American american

He thinks it's about money, EXPENSIVE

Like I’m some rich girl

"Do you see me buying bags? ",

I blurted out in couples therapy.

I hear his dissmissive undercurrent: I'm "worldly."

How do you make a noun into an adverb?

as in: it's a sin to attach to this world

1/7/11

weary and rattled
can you really see my thoughts?

The gym blurred
and I was free to slide and jump
with abandon and clarity
It was only a dance class

I pulled away from my lines

down under my feet soared my fifth finger


big
small
in-in
turn
 forward
back
lean
grip

up
wind and
pull the eyes deeper
(free the neck look in front)
tail
reach
turn
(pull away from inside knee)
out
up
big toe big toe
up
slide up
reach
down
lengthen down
back of knee
open
down
line the back behind me
bow
heal
pivot
these were my thoughts
and there was joy
for all my twists were
contained and washed into becoming

Is there an eye watching?
God I offer myself to you
to do with me as thou wilt
take away my difficulties

blanket

I thread my needle with smoke from dirty bathrooms in 2 million dollar apartments.

With ashes falling down bathtubs

And extension cords strung from baby toy hooks

Over shower curtains

and fans about to fall out windows.

I thread this needle with overly dramatic men listening to horrible self obsessed whiny country music about Jack Daniels and bad heavy metal

Years too late,

Hoping to bond with their toddler who just woke from his blissful nap and is now held into the computer screen at full volume listening to some song on you tube that means nothing to the little boy

Who is now pressing his lovely body on his fathers protruding empty belly.

Then when I look inside the eye of this needle I see mothers, biting their five year olds earlobes and dragging them away from their bedroom by the hair screaming don't wake me up.

And seven year old's writing sorry notes I love you I'll be better and slipping them under mommy's door

Making their own lunch

Walking themselves to the school bus but forgetting they had to brush their teeth

At least remembering to put on a ballet uniform so they could look more appealing for the child molester waiting for them when they got back off the bus all excited to go home to an empty house with Fred Flintstone and Nestle quick.

The thread is frayed and almost invisible. Made of absent husbands who forget to pick up their children from school, and when reminded, cab it there late, but just in time in time to show their wives contempt for routine, an inability to be reliable, a secret rage at helping.

"What I thought is you would go jogging and then just remember to pick up him up"... even though I slept till 1045am

And you got up at 7am

And took two kids to school in different directions:

At 820am on 70th street and 9am on Broadway and 84th street

Then for sheer sanity went running, by the river

Sunk your feet into the earth,

Finding roots with your toes and phoenixes in the clouds and octopuses in the river, praying there's a God.

I take this thread and use a fabric I made myself. To sew a cloth filled with charity and joy and care and attention and verbal communication and developing cognitive landmarks and taking daughters to the ballet and building wooden fire trucks for my son and flying big butterfly kites in the hallway

On days with no wind

And bringing both of them to the firehouse

So she could ring the bell and he could sit inside the truck.

And never giving my son chocolate ice cream because he is allergic but always having strawberry ice cream ready and still giving her the chocolate which is what she wants, but making it seem less appealing to him.

No one is deprived here or bitten. I will swing and play tag; I will take them to the Museum, to the new water park in Brooklyn, to swim on Sundays,

I will provide and we will cover ourselves with my blanket and I will protect them

And together we will wait for the next right action, all enfolded inside this quilt as we watch Mickey Mouse cartoons, in the meantime.

Paolina Weber

Copyright

Oct. 21, 2010

Squared by copper orange
I bend into Matte

Tocami nel cuore non
Ho piu spazio per amore

Sono spenta dalle candele
Non ce vento qui

L'aria gira dentro la bicycletta
Ma sopra sono diventata panna

Dondolami nel vento
Prendimi sulla terrazza
Tirami fuori sopra le onde


Andavo in barca quando sogniavo del futuro
Aperta e coperta di lana griggia
Giorni passano
Dove sono

Oggi ho visto amore
Schiarito da niente
Chiaro come'l vento

Entrando da te
Girata e sciolta
La strada e davanti
Come sara possibile?

Dio mi abandono alla tua maggia
Aspetero fin' a sempre
A partire da ora
Mio desiderio e davanti

there is nothing to hold
there is nothing to see
there is nothing to wish for
there is nothing to be
there is never a moment
there will never be

the only reason for this wish
is so that I see
the person I am
and the one I need to be


A grateful
dollop of merangue
Put me on your tongue and feel me dissolve

I want to stain the clouds with love
And trace outlines in the tall grass

to
narrow all angles and
hover over dark maple groves
to
Lie tinglingly zipped
into composure and
pulled into my denser self

A Cold Grey Summer Day
anywhere
The pink crabs were
not in the sand
I dug more and
more
waiting for their little legs
tickling
my knuckles
she wanted to see those crabs
bucket-fulls
like last year

digging in the sand
forming little sand avalanches
in the sandy water
 at sea level
digging for
 crab bodies,
hundreds
just under the dry surface

she had held five at a time
tickling her
in her
five year old palm


Inside this poem, in the future, you will find out, that we went to the wrong beach, this year.

The crabs were in Far Rockaway,
not Long Beach
we remembered that on the train, going home.


Yesterday we had postponed the beach
"you can't go when your brother has a fever!'

and even "no" on the day before yesterday
"you can't go when your brother is throwing up"

This happened right in front of the babysitting area of my job
I  masked his fever with a triple dose of tylenol
 so that I could teach Pilates

 I hope no other kid got coxacky,
it's a virus
also called foot, hand and mouth disease

His sister's two-days-straight disapointment
rattled her all the way to 66th street
"Let's go ask the doctor, if you don't believe me"
Were the words that came from inside me
"I want to go to Long Beach"
She  screamed  and ran away
from the taxi's open door
her sick brother and me inside
Straight up the street in her rage, past the Century 21
while I waited
growling




and on and on went the whining
till I was a shaking skeleton




The next day I gathered everything
 into the crackling blue Ikea bag :

The sexy water shooter,
which is two cylanders of plastic
 that you pump
to squirt the water out of.
A Circus Tent,
in red and yellow; a flag on top.
Two cheese sandwiches
 on brioche rolls,
in a dinosour lunchbox.
A red crayola  thermos
with a twist-top cup, shaped like the tip of the crayon
Two organic fruit bars
 "with psyllium flaxseed and inulin"
A lightening McQueen bucket
Three organic peppers that match the circus tent, in red, yellow and orange
a cash ledger book
 rose water perfume
a pen that looks like  red lipstick
And my gold string Bikini

---a man in the ocean tried to pick me up
saying "I like your bathing suit, other people around here are provincial"

(It's not like a stripper's because
The gold has black trim and black strings.)


plus, I really like provincial

(Just ask my husband who drives the Staten Island Ferry
 with his black haired scowl and soft blue eyes)

Today is a special day
The LIRR is a diesel train
 and she says "don't let go of my hand " to her younger brother
 "there are scary people in Penn Station,"
 she listens sometimes.



That was before she said
I hate everything
this whole day
and the sandwiches have sand in them
 and the day is ruined



so I said back:
that little girl  doesn't want to play with you
and is leaving because of you






I can't cope with all this
is not a poetic thing to write
 all that planning
 then nothing to hold on to

 just my speachless son,  seeing his mommy be mean to his sister

Long Beach
why wouldn't it be provincial ?
its a province of new york

I'm always  alone with these two kids
regardless
So I planned today like a reunion
so nice

except I was mean

I told her "Im so sorry I was so mean"

Because in my script

We made smiley faces in the sand

with jelly fish eyes

and sea weed hair

 and I traced the heads with my big toe

and ate the peppers in the circus tent


I hope you can 'erase the future' she said later that night



He fell asleep on the train home,
wrapped in a yellow blanket,
with his blue nail polish showing,
my four year old boy.
(don't be so provincial about his blue nail polish)
Leandro,
the Lion Man.

And Aurelia means Golden Crown,
like the senators in the First Roman Republic,
she's the six year old girl.

So I'll take them to far Rockaway
The last stop on the A,
with the crummy old streets
and the disgustingly dirty pizzaria.
"Don't touch anything, not one thing nothing, not anything, do you understand."
I'll  plan for an hour and a half trip this time,
and not bring my script
about future memories and being a good mother

Just carry my bucket of empty dreams
in one hand Paolina