Karen Greenbaum-Maya is a retired clinical psychologist in California. In another life, she was a German Lit major, read poetry for credit, and lived for Art. She has been in such wild places as: Jasper, Alberta; Radium, British Columbia; Ray Lakes in the Sierras, and the Greyhound bus depot in downtown Los Angeles after dark. She received Honorable Mention in the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Contest, and her poems and photographs have appeared in Lilliput Review, Off the Coast, and Sow’s Ear. Kattywompus publishes her two chapbooks, Burrowing Song and Eggs Satori. See more at her blog.
All work
The bite should be crisp, then sink into flesh /
at the market, a cavern, a temple of tuna, /
a swirl of cold ocean made solid. …
An experienced tourist wants to get lost in Paris. It’s not easy. The Eiffel Tower always shows up unexpectedly, sticking out from chestnut trees, floating over McDonald’s golden arches, thrusting like a glimpse of a woman’s haunch between Belle Époque buildings.
What blocks me now is not all mine. /
A building I don’t see /
holds an office I can’t find. …
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The bill in question is actually a 2,000 West African franc note, and it’s the equivalent of about four U.S. dollars. A helpful sum, really, but as I clutch the weathered crinkle in my sweaty palm, its value feels as dirty as the grime that is undoubtedly being transferred to my fingers.
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to Egg and Berry brewery, to the pack / of Czechy words I made but didn’t work / in this pink town. I’d readily go back / to your best spots, the unfired gun, that perk //
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And if the neap tides of my beauty / sadden him, I cannot help it: / I hang high, the waxy night light …
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Three thousand ancestors ask how I straddle / the sea, a foot on either shore. //
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