As I drive through the bower

of old oak trees

scanning 68th and 20th avenues northeast 

I am scared by the moon.

It is so low in the sky this night

I think it will smack me in the face.

I try to turn the wipers on,

but strands of hair white as paste

cover the window like thick rain.

A woman's mouth stretches open

in a silent scream. Bent fingers claw

until they reach my chest.

Some nights I lose my way home.

    Esther Altshul Helfgott is our Poet in Residence for September. Previously: Uncle Ben: What the Number Said, and A Poem is a Space.



    Originally published in The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review Vol. 4, no.3, 1993; re-printed in  Switched-on-Gutenberg: A Global Poetry Journal, Vol. 1, No.2, (March 1996); KotaPress Poetry Journal, Vol.1, Issue 2, Winter 1999; PoetsWest Literary Journal, vol. II, No. 1, Spring 1999; Identity Theory, Fall 2001.