We ignore this dying man
who can’t tell my sister what he wants
for dinner
just like the last one, our father, whose
death also began in his throat.
Hungry perhaps but
broken
like the alarm he installed
in their first apartment so they could hear the doorbell
over the dance music
that rang so loud they had to cover it with pillows
until he broke it into pieces.
Like the pulley
he used to lower furniture out the window
which he also had to take apart
since no machine lasts forever
and some do not even last as long as they should
so that two boys are left
to wonder
if the same bit is broken
inside them
or if everyone feels this way
whenever they notice a small piece of metal
on the floor which once
had a very specific purpose.
Naomi Janowitz is a professor, psychoanalyst and poet living in Berkeley, Ca. Her poems have appeared in Response, Into the Heights, and Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action.