Tag: Harrison Bae Wein

Five Poems by Harrison Bae Wein

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Watching One America

Lying in his bed, slumped
against the wooden headboard
in his shabby underwear,
watching the newscasters warn
of an immigrant tide at the border,
the secret spying of the Squad,
and Hunter Biden’s corruption,
my father, once a doctor–a
critical thinker–sat mesmerized.

They convinced him
that COVID was a sham
cooked up by the Dems in
a plot against the president–
Mother, too, who haggled
over cuts of meat, brought
her fur coat in for cleaning,
met friends for book club.

Now, dead from
COVID, this photo
from the funeral home
is all I have of him,
looking as if he’s fallen
asleep on his new My Pillow,
watching his shows,
believing everything.

*

My Mother’s Anger

When I was a child,
I would lie in bed
with the door open
and listen to my mother
yelling down the hallway,
the bangs jolting me awake
as I squinted my eyes
to blur the kitchen light
into a white death ray,
or a tractor beam that
might carry me away.

I remember in Maine
at my father’s conference
when she told me
to wait outside the cafeteria
with my younger brother,
and we watched through
the plate-glass window
as she walked down the aisle
and dumped some Coke
on a stranger’s head

When I told her
I was getting married,
she shouted for the better part
of an hour–and as I tried
to leave, she hurled
a bottle of nail polish
at my head

I ducked, letting
it crack on the door
to leave a red slash
which no one
thought to clean, and
that darkened,
over time,
like a festering scab.

*

Last Words

Growing up,
our house was like a boxing ring,
parents in their corners,
me behind my mother,
brother with my dad.

Still, I spent Saturday
mornings in the back of his office
reading National Geographics
about faraway places
and wandering around
to hear patients praise him
in the waiting room.

When he was done
cleaning ears and
examining tonsils,
we’d walk down the avenue
to lunch on knishes
and corned beef sandwiches.

It’s hard to fathom how that cool,
confident flirt, smoking in his
consultation room as he
scanned the medical journals,
became a crooked, stooped
old man, cursing under
his breath at his wife.

When I last time saw him,
he reached for something–
maybe me, maybe a ghost–
and I took his hand.

His final words, in quarantine,
on the phone, were
“She’s killing me”
or “Help me,” but I can’t
recall which came first,
and which were his last.

*

Things To Think About When I Die

The placid jade water of China Cove.
The earthy scent of a redwood forest after a rain.
Coarse black sand scratching the arches of my feet.
The salty spray of a wave on my face.

Brandy on my tongue from the center of a chocolate.
Fresh, soft figs picked just that morning.
The blaring brass of Dvořák’s eighth.
Fragonard’s garden swings.

Early morning walks on Broadway, deserted but for us.
Driving your dad’s clunky blue wagon up I-95.
The curve of your hip when you lie on your side.
Planting trees together in the backyard.

Holding our newborn daughter for the first time.
Dancing our son to sleep on my chest.
Lying in a tent, unable to sleep, and
thinking, somehow, that I was unhappy.

*

About the Past

If I could patch
the rips in the canvas
with fabric and glue
to hide the bruises,
I might forget–
but pentimenti
always show through,
stubborn, insistent,
reproaching;
however many
coats you apply,
their pigments and
shapes can’t be hidden,
and flesh can’t be
scrubbed or rinsed enough
to erase old scars.

*

Harrison Bae Wein’s fiction and poetry has appeared in several literary journals, most recently in ONE ART and Clio’s Psyche, and forthcoming in riverSedge. Harrison has won several awards as a health and science writer, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Richmond Times-Dispatch and many other outlets. He founded and now edits two health publications at the National Institutes of Health. You can find him online at http://harrisonwein.com.

Three Poems by Harrison Bae Wein

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

My Aunt When She Drank Scotch

Whenever my aunt babysat for us
intending to stay the night
carrying her canvas tote,
wearing white leather tennis shoes,

I would wake to her sobbing
and sneak into the guest room
where she sat on the hideaway bed,
wearing her blue men’s pajamas,

nursing a scotch, both hands
wrapped around the glass.
What was wrong, I didn’t know
until one night she told me

that she once loved someone
who wasn’t a Jew
but my grandmother drove him away,
and after that, she lived like a widow

with no one to talk to over meals,
no one to sleep beside
no one to help her pick out bath towels
or have children with.

I heard the ice tinkle
as she sipped, eyelids shut,
and to this day I’ve found
comfort in scotch,

its caramel scent and honey glow;
I didn’t know then
how it burned your throat,
that it wasn’t like candies and sweets.

*

Memory of My Grandfather

Grandma divided the bed
whenever I slept over
with a wooden board,
saying she didn’t want me
catching his cancer,

but aside from that,
all I can recall
is that small apartment kitchen,

how he shuffled past
the old gas oven
you had to light with a match
in his collared striped pajamas
to sit at the dining table

and drink his
Pepto-Bismol
from a small juice glass
to ease his stomach
after the chemo,
the chalky pink sludge
leaving a foam line
on his lip,

and then how I wailed
when I learned
they’d had his funeral
without telling me—

although to this day
I don’t know
what it was
I thought I’d missed.

*

My Mother Loses Me at the Department Store

I am stranded on an island
of a mannequin stand, sitting and
peering up at the pale plastic skin,
her dress the color of canaries,

a man in an armchair winks
as if we’re in a secret club, but I
focus on the women meandering,
rummaging for bargains,

mother nowhere in sight,
muzac drifting through the air
as cash registers open and close,
sounding like distant thunder.

They disappear behind racks
of packed rayon and wool,
scarves drooping from steel saplings,
hats perched like hawks,

and I wonder what would happen
if they turn off the lights,
and lock all the doors, with me still inside—
who will ever find me

when I spot her emerging
from a dressing room,
smiling and
wearing a new dress,
the tags already removed.

*

Harrison Bae Wein’s fiction and poetry has appeared in several literary journals. His series of laboratory stories, Blinded by Science, was the first fiction published at LabLit.com. He has also been a finalist in the Glimmer Train Family Matters short story contest. Harrison has won several awards as a health and science writer, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Richmond Times-Dispatch and many other outlets. He founded and now edits two health publications at the National Institutes of Health. You can find him online at http://harrisonwein.com.