After They Got the Lindbergh Baby
Faye Moskowitz
Dead at forty, cells gone wild
Your warnings are my meat and bread.
My fears have Greek and Latin
For their roots, but scientific
Names can not obscure the dread;
No vinaigrette or handkerchief
Can mask the stink of fear
The dead communicate. Mother,
I pray your warnings do me good;
I pass them like a pitcher, child
to child. In the wilderness
Of dream, your fingers scoured
Clean, reach like mine
To touch wood.
