Tag: Jennifer Abod

Five Poems by Jennifer Abod

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Diagnosis

Silent in straight-back chairs, my wife and I
watch the doctor review her chart.

Alzheimer’s, he says.

Then, without waiting a beat, he asks
You going to keep teaching?

His cool casualness irritates me.
I answer hot, Of course not!

He looks to her. Of course, I will.

Our car ride home, the only sound
a summer wind.

In the disquiet of our bedroom,
she brushes my arm.
Her eyes, tender and clear:

You answered
as if I wasn’t there.

Eyes closed, I see
my betrayal.

Can you forgive me?

She pauses, the dust swirls.
It will take some time, but yes.

I’m still learning to forgive myself.

*

Another Alzheimer’s Morning

In sleep, my wife speaks a language
known only to her.

The laughter in her dreams
tells me she’s still here.

I prepare coffee. Steady my doubts.
The weakness in my knees.

I command myself: steer
this ship forward.

Toward a future I cannot
imagine. Refuse to conjure.

All I need now is to love
her today.

*

Life Again

When my wife died
I was a slippery seed
waiting for the wind
to plant me

It isn’t fair, really
the luxury of time,
we rarely shared
together

Different coasts,
children, work,
the revolution, degrees,
quick meals, fast cars,
Alzheimer’s

Sometimes I scrub
a counter, iron a vest,
sweep leaves, watch
hummingbirds feed—
I hold life again
to settle me

*

Keepsakes of my Late Wife

This fall, empty as a pot,
to temper winter blues
I paint our dull kitchen
lemony yellow.

I remove her keepsakes:

the gold whistle on the wall
she blasted at Pride and protests.

The postcard of the French painting
on the fridge she didn’t need to send:
Our home is with one another.

When the walls are fresh like spring,
I stand in the doorway, imagine her
gentle nod.

Each time I leave for the day,
her whistle now on the front door
reminds me to be brave.

*

Winter Blooms, Long Beach

On the doorstep of 80, I linger more

in the view outside my window

In November, the trumpet tree, once

frail, delivers petals of delicate pink

Star jasmine invigorates

tangled green vines crowning

the wrought iron fence

I search for other miracles

Near the driveway, a purple profusion

of Jacaranda, an Amaryllis

on the brink of red explosion

I am in awe of what I’ve missed

What I have yet to see

*

Dr. Jennifer Abod is an award-winning documentary film director and broadcaster. She is a Pen Awardee for emerging poets (2025). Her poems appear in: James Crews Anthology: Love is for Everyone, ONE ART, Artemis, Persimmon Tree, Morning Writes: An anthology by Lesbians over Sixty, Spillway, Sinister Wisdom, Silver Birch Press and other publications. Dr. Abod is a former Assistant Professor of Communications and corporate media specialist. She was singer/songwriter with the New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band and sings Jazz when the spirit moves her.

Quiet Cup by Jennifer Abod

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Quiet Cup
Day after the LA Fire started (January 2025)

This morning, the wide plastic, ugly gray lid on the industrial garbage can in the alley outside my kitchen window is blocking my quiet morning view: high polled wires in an open sky, lush green trees in the distance. The apartment owner next door put a lock on the lid after the fire a few weeks ago that woke Winnie, the dog, who woke my stepdaughter in her upstairs apartment at four AM. By the time she alerted me, she had called the fire department. I watched them in the dark as they tried to stop the flames rising to our roof. I couldn’t help imagining the person who did it, someone who can’t take care of himself, who yells at himself on street corners, leaves empty 7-Eleven cups in our parkway grass, deciding to just do something. I drink coffee looking at the burnt pile of vine branches and lifeless leaves on our charred wood fence, march determinedly to the back-alley, slam shut the lid, return to the house hoping the person who lit the fire finds something else to do.

*

Jennifer Abod is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, radio broadcaster and jazz singer. She is a former assistant professor of Communications and Women’s Studies. Her poems appear in One Art Journal, The Metro Washington Weekly, Silver Birch Press, Sinister Wisdom, Wild Crone Wisdom, Artemis Journal, Fruitslice, Discretionary Love, Persimmon Tree and are forthcoming in Spillway Magazine, James Crew’s Love Anthology, Vita and the Woolf. www.jenniferabod.com

Two Poems by Jennifer Abod

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Rethinking Pink

I hated pink.
It surrounded me
in my mother’s
Chicago kitchen:
bubble-gum pink tiles,
café curtains, counter tops,
the dial-up wall phone.
Pink, the color I ran away from,
my mother’s version
of who I was supposed to be.
In my kitchen, I fold
a muted pink bath towel,
remember, how it complimented
Angela’s wet brown shoulders,
her clear eyes,
reminds me why I keep
one frayed pink-cotton turtleneck,
in my closet,
Two pink-plastic flowered bottles,
on my bathroom shelf.

*

Dance Lesson

Angela and I
would dance
in the living room,
on a sidewalk,
at the beach

I had four decades
to memorize her dancing,
how it stirred the air

That last time,
her flowered dress,
legs at rest
in the wheelchair,
I sway her arms
high and wide
her eyes,
like pools of rain
in moonlight.

Now, wherever I am,
and a soulful beat
takes hold,
I dance,

She’d want me
to let sorrow go.

*

Dr. Jennifer Abod is an award-winning filmmaker and radio broadcaster. Her poems appear in Sinister Wisdom, ONE ART: a journal of poetry and The Metro Washington Weekly, and are forthcoming in Wild Crone Wisdom, and Artemis Journal. Jennifer was the singer in the pioneering New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band (1970-1976). For the past year, she’s been singing jazz standards and contemporary tunes every Thursday night at Chez Bacchus a restaurant, in Long Beach, CA.

ONE ART’s nominations for Best Spiritual Literature

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~ ONE ART’s nominations for Orison Book’s Best Spiritual Literature (formerly The Orison Anthology) ~ 

Amit Majmudar – Constancy
Bracha K. Sharp – After The Questions
Jennifer Abod – At the Indian Ocean
Pauli Dutton – While Teaching Line Dancing at a Senior Center, Someone Accuses Me of Always Being Happy
Donna Spruijt-Metz – Day 0: Shekhinah
Robin Turner – The Unfolding

Envy by Jennifer Abod

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Envy

New Haven, Connecticut, 1979

I hate washing dishes,
but for her, it’s meditation,
where she choreographs,
imagines her next moves.

That first summer,
I lean into Angela’s kitchen doorway,
the Victorian house
where she mothers two young children,
raised two girls, rescued from abuse,
mourned her first-born son, Kippy,
killed at three, by a drunk driver.
I can’t believe she’s let me in.

Water trickles into the
double porcelain sink.
Pink calico curtains
flutter in the breeze.

I admire her dancer’s back,
shapely legs, sandaled feet,
bare-brown arms in
her butter-yellow linen,
shirt.

Standing in her doorway,
as her hands caress
each plate,
I cannot believe,
how jealous I am
of every soapy dish.

*

Jennifer Abod, Ph.D. is an award-winning producer/director of both film and radio. Two of her four documentary films feature major poets of second wave feminism: Audre Lorde and Kitty Tsui. Abod organized and hosted the first virtual poetry reading featuring Lesbian Widows in 2021. Abod’s poetry appears in Sinister Wisdom and One Art. She is reading her poetry as part of OUTWRITE 2022 this month. She is working on her first poetry manuscript.

At the Indian Ocean by Jennifer Abod

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At the Indian Ocean

We had never seen a beach like this.
No lifeguard chairs or buildings
to burden the view

The lack of clocks,
sirens, gunshots,
held us as we hold hands

Watch the only human
graceful and slow,
like a tall black egret
across alabaster sand

*

Jennifer Abod, Ph.D. is an award-winning producer/director of both film and radio. Two of her documentaries feature major poets of the second wave: Audre Lorde and Kitty Tsui. She organized and hosted the first virtual poetry event featuring Lesbian Widows in 2021. Abod’s poetry appears in Sinister Wisdom. She is working on her first poetry manuscript.