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

DRIVING HOME FROM MOTHER’S HOUSE

As I drove through the bower
of old oak trees
scanning 68th and 20th avenues northeast
I was scared by the moon.
It was so low in the sky that night
I thought it would smack me in the face.
I tried to turn the wipers on,
but strands of hair white as paste
covered the window like thick rain.
A woman’s mouth stretched open
in a silent scream. Bent fingers clawed
until they reached my chest.
Some nights I lose my way home.

"Driving Home from Mother's House," was originally published in The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review Vol. 4, no.3, 1993 ((Vancouver Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Society, Vancouver, British Columbia, Katalina Bartok, M.D., Ph.D.,editor)

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<