Three Poems by Elaine Mintzer

Path
        after Jack Hirschman

Go to your road,
the one you thought
would take you all the way.

The one that started with Eve
and traversed the continents.

The one you share with your mother
who is signaling
she’s taking the next offramp.

The road you were sure
would carry offspring
because it is the nature of roads
to look into the future.

Make peace with discontinuity
and rest assured
this road will last as long as you.

In the meantime, count
the palm trees, the phone poles,
the dented guard rails, then
lose count.

Pass the slow trucks,
torn tire treads, and flattened crows
flapping on the graveled verge.

Turn on the radio.
Sing your heart out.

* 

My Father Finds No Reason to Quit Smoking

1.
My father leaves my sister’s funeral
before the guests thank God for their living children,
ward off the evil eye,
climb into their cars
and hurry home into the setting sun.

2.
My father slides into the leather seat of his T-Bird.
Lights a cigarette.
Puts the car in drive.
Peels onto the open highway,

3.
His own father died before he had language.
Daddy, Papa, Tata, Aba
No name.
No face.

4.
His mother sent him to the promise
of America when he was ten,
then died before the end of the war,
her hiding place sold for a pack of cigarettes.

5.
There is no language of grief
for children.

6.
Hawks and vultures circle the foothills.
The earth is wind-scrubbed and raw.
Black ash from last season’s burn
rims the reborn manzanita and sage.

7.
This time of year, poppies
blaze golden above the Grapevine
where sky presses
against the crags of the Tehachapis.

8.
In Hebrew, the word for wind, ruach,
is the same as the word for spirit.
And the word for breath, nishama,
means soul.

9.
The miles pass, ticked by lane lines.
The tip of Dad’s cigarette glows
as he pulls in the smoke.
It fills him like the spirit
of God.

*

On Deciding Whether to Drive Again to Antelope Valley to See the Poppies

It isn’t that I hate spring: its slithering
        creeks, frozen lizards thawing,
        dew-bejeweled blossoms.

It’s just that it was in spring we buried
        my sister under her edgeless green comforter,
        then drove to walk among the million rain-born poppies.

It isn’t that we were planning to create
        a ritual, an empty
        gesture, a heart-aching memorial,

but how could it be otherwise
        with the earth so determined in its rotation,
        and us just along for the ride.

*

Elaine Mintzer’s poem, E=mc2, was published in the February 2026 edition of Scientific American. Her second full-length collection, Drink from the River, will be released this summer by Moon Tide Press.