Poetry Class at Cheltenham High School / Poem: The Loneliness of Essex House

I wasn't even late.

Parked in a new place. There are soooo many doors in that high school. The fear is that I won't be able to find my car.

I am notorious about getting lost.

We have some real talented people in class. I always love Nadia's poems.

I asked our teacher Bill if he was working on anything of his own. No, he said, he's been too emotionally involved with his students at Temple Ambler.

One of them, he said, committed suicide three weeks ago. The class was really upset and so was Bill. "He was very talented," Bill said about Jeremy, 25, who told Bill he was taking more Paxil.

He had an on and off battle with whether or not to kill himself. Deeply depressed. The last time Bill saw him he was very pale.

Bill and the students attended his funeral. His father, said Bill, felt very guilty.

Everyone reviews everything they've ever said to the deceased individual, thinking, I should have said that, he would be alive today if only I'd said that.

I told the class - which was very small - only Eileen, Nadia, Boris and Edith - that I run a support group and when we find out that someone is suicidal, we set up a call-team and check on them every day until the suicidal feelings go away.

I consider myself fortunate that I once had bipolar d/o and was indeed suicidal when Dr Larry Schwartz yanked me off lithium, w/o a slow weaning down, and was suicidal the better part of a year.

That's how I know how to handle these very precarious situations.

Bill made these corrections on my poem.

I was in a hurry to get home b/c I needed to take my 8 pm dose of antirejection meds.

Class lets out at 9.

The high school is a maze. I was totally lost. Couldn't find ANY doors, let alone the right one.

The first door I came to I peeked outside.

Ah, there was the night sky. Other than that I couldn't see a thing.

Walking carefully, making sure I didn't fall down any stairs, I saw I was in a little courtyard.

A courtyard with no way out.

Jesus christ, I thought, look what I got myself into.

I was sure the door would have locked behind me.

A miracle! It wasn't.

Then I found the door I was looking for. How happy I was to see my car.

Turning on the ignition, the gas tank light went on. Impossible, I thot to myself. I should have enuf gas to get home and then some.

But, no, the light stayed on while I drove lickety-split for about 6 minutes, fearing at any time my car would stop running. I made sure to drive on the right and to go thru all the lights so I wouldn't get stuck in the middle of an intersection.

Finally, the light went out and sure enuf I had plenty of gas.

False alarm.

Nonetheless I pulled into the BP Oil Spill station, you rotten money-hungry bastards who don't care about your workers or the wildlife, where the price was a whopping 3.93 per gallon. Don't complain, Ruthie, wait'll you see what it is this summer.

I spent $40 for gas, a little over 11 gallons.

Then I joyfully rode home, wearing my Ask Me Why I Have 3 Kidneys shirt.

Coming home always requires eating a snack.

This is Greek yogurt, walnuts, bananas, topped with molasses.

Scott taught me about the value of molasses. It's rich in potassium, magnesium, calcium and iron.

It's quite delicious. It was on my forbidden list prior to my kidney transplant.


THE LONELINESS OF THE ESSEX HOUSE



it’s the smell that gets you
when you walk in the lobby
there’s no one there
but two caged birds
one above the other
looking
as the buzzer lets you in

walking down the diamond-patterned carpet
i’d hear her chain unlock
we’d driven in from pennsylvania
to our childhood home of
how- can- i- forget- you, ohio?

a mercy visit, ellen and i

aunt ethel had the broad shoulders
of a man
a big woman with dainty
legs
and sunken breasts that nursed no
babies
a case of the mumps had ruined her
female parts
she bore the devastation like
a queen
a pink rose in a family of
kvetchers

as a child i sat on her lap
and rubbed my lips over her
polished red fingernails
fondled her diamond and amber watch
that sits in my mother’s jewelry box today.

ellen and i sat on the purple couch
she didn’t bother putting on her wig for us
i stared at her white scalp through scattered
straws of white hair
and thought of the moon back home on
cowbell road
looked around the
living room at all the things
i loved
a small organ no one played anymore
a lamp that turned on and off with a
pumping motion of the handle
like milking a cow

we sat there for hours
as ethel talked
we went to the bathroom
and she talked
we visited the bedroom where she
and uncle dave had slept
and then smooth-faced uncle herman who
wore a jacket and tie at our seders

ellen and i got off the purple couch
at the same time and met in the
wallpapered hallway
we could hear ethel’s voice
sheer monotone
cascading through the apartment
like a philip glass oratorio
talk talk talk talk talk
talk talk talk
why didn’t she visit helen lefkowich down the hallway?
they were the only two left.

after she died her tall white dresser
with silver handles
moved in with me
i looked in the drawers
and found all the letters i’d ever written her
tied with a silver ribbon in the bottom drawer:
Mrs. Ethel Rickman, 19333 Van Aken Boulevard, Shaker Heights OH 44122

it would be years before i dared open them:
had i been kind?