by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

 

Where’s my role model,
I could scream to the hills.

Same place Roy Cohn is, no doubt.
My mother said we were all destined 

For the same weigh station, perhaps
The one my father regretted not buying. 

Look at Leonard Garment, her first
Nomination. Never heard of him? 

I rest my case. My mother, post-diagnosis;
My father so stabbed and ravaged by an era’s 

revolutions he had to wrap himself
In bloodied sheets and bandages, 

A poor second skin to meet the world
as words and institutions were being 

pilloried all around him. He also
had to be wondering if he would be 

among the five percent Who get to keep
their hair. My mother said She’d divorce him 

if he ever got a motorcycle. He was always so
Naked, while my mother was ever in uniform: 

Khaki, denim, sweatshirts. Such was the highlight
Of their union, for one purpose, to absorb this
 
smiting of enemies, though at a careful distance.
Yet night after night after night. Days were 

Shorter then, as was the need for vengeance. 
Sinners think heaven is administered 

By their victims: Names they’ve expelled
Temporarily into dustbins; or on to the covers 

Of books with titles that now go unmentioned.
Don’t look up that reference because you just 

Might find yourself liking the wrong kind
Of system. I can’t stand the suspense,
 
The finely-wrought indecision. I can’t stand
Not knowing whether there is a god and who’s 

Working with Him: the United Nations,
the National Register Of Historic Places, maybe 

the Farm Bureau And Henry Wallace, seated right
up there with Saint Peter And other diminished vice presidents. 

Let’s have a roll call of all the people needed now
like stewardesses and pilots on a bad LSD trip, 

Though it would be an elitist exercise, wouldn’t it,
Since We all have different precedents. Mine are 

Embedded in the religion of my parents, a clear
And diligent clarifying of the fat with a handful 

Of scruff off the back of a model, four good legs
And horns in progress. Can’t you guess? It’s in Exodus. 

 

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is a poet, author, and memoirist from New York. Her novel, ‘The Hawkman” (Amberjack Publishing) was a finalist in the 2019 Eric Hoffer awards. She has had work published or forthcoming in The Comstock Review, I 70 Review, Tiferet, and SHANTIH. Her inspiration for this piece ” The ongoing impeaching inquiry, and that my parents aren’t around to see it.”