Tag: Julie Standig

Let’s Make a Deal by Julie Standig

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Let’s Make a Deal

1. No Big Deal

My dad’s words to me
during a fireside chat—
I need you to keep a promise
you have yet to make,
and you won’t like,
but I need it just the same.

What he neglected to add,
despite how difficult and necessary,
was how this final act would taunt.

2. Easy Deal

My mom also wanted me to help
end her life. I smiled, if only
you had asked me forty years ago…
But when the hospital called at 3am
I did kick in, no tubes, no thanks.

3. Raw Deal

The good daughter did the deed. Twice.
As told. And yet, I can’t shake
the hard fact I was the one, not nature,
not doctors, I alone was responsible
for ending their days, hours, minutes.

4. My Deal

Know this, my children—
for future reference,
it was always the right thing to do.
No big deal.

*

Julie Standig, is the author of two poetry books— The Forsaken Little Black Book, (Kelsay Books) which was nominated for an Eric Hoffer Award and a chapbook, Memsahib Memoirs (Plan B Press). Her poems have appeared in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Gyroscope Review, New Verse News, Macqueen’s Quinterly, ONE ART and elsewhere. A lifetime New Yorker, she now resides in Bucks County with her husband and their springer spaniel.

The Immigrant by Julie Standig

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The Immigrant

My aunt’s apartment on Surf Avenue
was immaculate. I thought.
Until I had to clean it out. Shopping bags
overfilled, one on top of another—
in every closet, pantry, and storage bin.

I discovered old bank statements,
official letters from Germany—in German.
Letters from unknown-to-us people,
written in Polish.
Letters from Israel,
written in Hebrew.
Letters from lawyers that testified
what was taken, when, how much.
Her ketubah from Bergen Belson.

The linen closet was stuffed with towels,
and between those towels, more letters.
One took our breath away
           They took the kinder, put them on a train.
           We knew we would not see them again.
They took her father’s shoe factory.
They took the silver. The china.
Her hair. They sterilized her at Block 10.
They took her baby boy.

The bedroom closet was packed with racks
of shoes. Row after row after row.
A pair of slippers trimmed in fur. Size 5.
My aunt had small feet.

I clutched her nut-brown sweater to my heart.
It was the same one she wore
for her immigration photo.
She kept everything. And I unearthed it.

Stashed in a night-table drawer—
an evergreen marbled notebook
on dictation and grammar,
two accordion-folded rain bonnets,
in plastic sleeves with the ILGWU* stamp.

Small paperbacks:
Geography (for 7th and 8th grade)
Spelling
Mathematics
The D.A.R. Manual for Citizenship

And her porcelain plate with FDR
and Churchill’s side-by-side faces.
Written on the bottom—For Democracy.

*International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).

*

Julie Standig’s poetry has appeared in Schuylkill Journal Review, Sadie Girl Press, Gyroscope Review and online journals. She has a full collection of poems, The Forsaken Little Black Book and her chapbook, Memsahib Memoir. Lifetime New Yorker, she now resides in Bucks County with her husband and their springer spaniel.