Esther Altshul Helfgott: Poems

Driving Home from Mother's House Sister Father's Skull  At Sixteen  Dream  The Old Woman  If I Could Stop the Words  At the Hospital  The Psychiatrist and the Poet Dear Pat

SISTER

The pain of brother runs through her veins
like first son's blood hunting a new river-flow.

Holding onto new prey, he does not look back.
The new life is solely his. He defines - creates -

without them. That was Nature's plan, after all.
Their parents are almost dead.

He will see her when their mother goes.
Then his freedom from the old river

that ran his mind until his body fled
will be assured. He knows. (His life's that way).

As for her, she no longer waits her brother's hand.
She studies the river from which he ran.
 

"Sister" was originally published in PoetsWest Literary Journal, vol. II, No. 1, Spring 1999

Driving Home from Mother's House Sister Father's Skull  At Sixteen  Dream  The Old Woman  If I Could Stop the Words  At the Hospital  The Psychiatrist and the Poet Dear Pat

Esther Altshul Helfgott is a poet and independent scholar working on a biography of Edith Buxbaum. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington with a thesis on the politics and poetry of Holocaust poet, Irena Klepfisz. Esther's poems and articles have appeared in numerous periodicals, and she is the author of The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices (Kota Press, 2000). In her work as a writing teacher, Esther helps poets and writers bring their authentic voices to the page. She can be reached at:

eahelfgott2@comcast.net 

Esther Altshul Helfgott's Home Page  and see also

www.analysands.homestead.com

Esther Altshul Helfgott's neue Website >THE EDITH BUXBAUM JOURNAL<