Tag: Lori Levy

WISE by Lori Levy

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WISE

We say the old are wise.
I am 71. I look in the mirror
for a sign of wisdom.
Nothing there—unless wisdom hides
in wrinkles and graying hair,
eyes that see suffering everywhere:
people in distress, their inner spark dimmed
by the death of a loved one
or by their daily struggles with health issues or
money problems or relationships turning stale,
hostile, toxic. A world darkened
by the terrors of war, hunger, trauma.

I study my mouth in the mirror,
not smiling at the moment.
No light in this misery.
I don’t feel wise.

I have nothing to offer the woman in the mirror—
except to gather her sorrows and hold them for a while
until I can’t anymore, the burden too heavy to contain.

Stepping away, I think of my granddaughters.
I know that, wherever they are—
inside or outside, in the light, the dark—
they are laughing, dancing, spinning cartwheels,
singing their K-pop songs
to anyone, everyone, listening or not.

I begin to suspect we’ve got it backwards:
it’s the young who are wise.

*

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Poetry East, WayWords Literary Journal, Passager Journal, ONE ART, and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbooks: “What Do You Mean When You Say Green? and Other Poems of Color” (Kelsay Books) and “Feet in L.A., But My Womb Lives in Jerusalem, My Breath in Vermont” (Ben Yehuda Press). Levy lives with her husband in Los Angeles near their children and grandchildren.

TO BE LIKE YOU by Lori Levy

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TO BE LIKE YOU

In memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I want to be like you, RBG.
I want to ride an elephant in India
with my polar opposite.
I want to dine with this friend,
go to operas with him, pinch myself
to keep from laughing when his humor splits me
in a place as sober as the Supreme Court.
I want my family to gather with his
on holidays and birthdays,
putting politics aside for friendship.
I want to banish beliefs to another room,
muted for a while, so they won’t interfere
when a man whose opinions and conclusions
I fiercely oppose
sends me two dozen roses on my birthday.
I want to smile as gratefully as you did.

When I think of you, RBG, I see my mother,
the light in her eyes when she tells me the story—
how she and you were best friends in grade school
in Brooklyn, the two best students in the class.
How your parents took her to the opera with you.
How decades later, from her home in Israel,
she sent a letter to you at the Supreme Court.
I want to be like you, RBG: the kind of woman
who, no matter how busy, finds a moment
to read a letter from her childhood friend.
A woman who writes back.

*

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Poet Lore, Paterson Literary Review, Mom Egg Review, ONE ART, and numerous other online and print literary journals and anthologies in the U.S., the U.K., and Israel. Two of her chapbooks were published in 2023: “What Do You Mean When You Say Green? and Other Poems of Color” (Kelsay Books) and “Feet in L.A., But My Womb Lives in Jerusalem, My Breath in Vermont” (Ben Yehuda Press). Levy lives with her husband in Los Angeles, but “home,” for her, has also been Vermont and Israel.

Lice by Lori Levy

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LICE

It’s a rite of passage for mothers,
I tell my daughter when she calls in alarm
at what she’s spotted on her daughter’s head.
Most of us, it seems, have to learn
how to check for them, kill them, comb them out,
dead or alive, along with their stubborn nits
that stick to the hair. She’s a lice virgin:
it’s her first time raking a thin-toothed comb
through her daughter’s hair. Her daughter is 11—
the same age I was when a nurse
came into our classroom in Springfield, Vermont
to check our scalps. I thought it’s something
only poor kids get, only dirty kids. A mark of shame.
Years later, as a mother, I learn that these tiny invaders
don’t care how rich or clean or educated you are.
I become an experienced nit picker.

My granddaughter doesn’t know she has lice
when she goes to sleep at a new friend’s house
in the new town they’ve moved to.
Doesn’t know she’s bringing them with her
when she sleeps in the bed with her friend,
uses her hairbrush, her bike helmet.
As soon as she finds out, she warns her friend—
who stops texting and calling and says she’s not allowed
to invite her again for a sleepover.
As if my granddaughter has the plague.
No one wants lice, but what’s more harmful,
more contagious? A scalp full of crawling bugs—
or the verdicts, sometimes mistaken,
that clamor inside our heads?

*

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod International Journal, Poet Lore, Poetry East, Paterson Literary Review, and numerous other online and print literary journals in the U.S., the U.K., and Israel. Two of her chapbooks were published in 2023: “What Do You Mean When You Say Green? and Other Poems of Color” (Kelsay Books), and “Feet in L.A., But My Womb Lives in Jerusalem, My Breath in Vermont” (Ben Yehuda Press). Levy lives with her husband in Los Angeles near her children and grandchildren.