by Arlene Weiner
We’d go down to the end of Dyckman Street
to watch the trains, Mom and Teddy and I.
We’d wave at the locomotives, and the engineers
would wave back. A little family.
In spring we saw shad nets in the Hudson River.
There’s a tree called “shadblow” because
it bloomed when the shad were running,
early spring.
We lived in Manhattan, in an apartment.
Trees in the park, fish displayed on ice
in the window of the fish store.
Near my grandmother’s apartment house,
one magnificent magnolia covered itself
with bloom, white blushed pink, every spring.
to watch the trains, Mom and Teddy and I.
We’d wave at the locomotives, and the engineers
would wave back. A little family.
In spring we saw shad nets in the Hudson River.
There’s a tree called “shadblow” because
it bloomed when the shad were running,
early spring.
We lived in Manhattan, in an apartment.
Trees in the park, fish displayed on ice
in the window of the fish store.
Near my grandmother’s apartment house,
one magnificent magnolia covered itself
with bloom, white blushed pink, every spring.
Arlene Weiner grew up in New York City and has lived in Pittsburgh for decades. She has been a Shakespeare scholar, a den mother, a cardiology technician, and an editor. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The New Verse News. Ragged Sky Press published three collections of her poetry. The most recent is More (2022).