PLOT

I had a map in my heart to sense which room
my father was in before I entered the house.
An X on the kitchen or his bedroom,
or the living room located him. Red X
warned me to go to a neighbor.

He’d seen his four older brothers murdered
in a pogrom. Anything could rile him.

When he got to this country, he banged out his rage
sparring at Gold’s Gym and became a middleweight boxer.
After I was born, he left boxing to buy his own grocery store.
He kept fit by shadowboxing and lifting cases of seltzer.

Any startle and he was a boxer again,
hearing the ding of a bell announcing the next round.
He sprang from his corner, fists swinging.

A teacher once snapped her fingers in my face.
“You were in a trance,” she said.

How could I tell her I was plotting
the entrance to my home?

*

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro has published in the NYT (Lives), Newsweek, and more. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and for Best of the Net. Her short stories and poetry have been published in Prism, The MacGuffin, Euphony, Penumbra, Harpur Palette, the Iowa Review, and many more. Her poetry collection Death, Please Wait, was published by Box Turtle Press. rochellejshapiro.com
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