Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

Sarah

“Her laugh is a reference to another echo, paper speaking sun.” – Eric Baus

Sarah was born in the year that Adolf Hitler’s ascension began. It was a Great Depression, and the Harlem Renaissance seemed to die overnight. Except for the bus-stop gossip about Langston Hughes. Hughes died in 1967. Sarah long left Spanish Harlem and had nothing to do with the hippies. As far as she knew that was a West Coast thing. Sarah doesn’t remember the beginning of World War 2 but was 12 when it ended. Was old enough to understand that death comes for everyone sooner or later, but for some death comes all too soon. In 1971 her first grandchild was born. The grass was still green in Philly, Trick or Treaters begging for candy. Eight years later the first lights on Boat House Row were lit. Almost the end of a decade. Sarah remembers Regan becoming president. Didn’t like the man. Didn’t like his movies. Sarah was an intermittent voter at best. Sarah was 52 when they bombed MOVE. She was already living in a ranch-style home in the suburbs of South Jersey.  One year before the bombing Sarah bought tickets for both of her grandchildren to see the Jackson 5 Reunion Tour, but her daughter forbade it. She explained to Sarah that Michael Jackson had become Satan’s spokesperson. The Thriller  video deplorable. Sarah said it was the best concert she ever attended. In 1985 Sarah took her grandson sneaker shopping. He bought a pair of blue suede pumas. In 1987 Sarah caught her grandson sneak-watching Eddie Murphy’s Raw. Sarah said Don’t tell your mother. Sarah’s daughter married a man Sarah disliked. He was the whitest man alive. Sarah understood it would be her daughter’s one and only rebellion. When Sarah was 87 years old her son-in-law died.

Sarah caught me looking through my father’s photo album found hidden in a closet. Sarah said He never stopped loving that girl from Vietnam. The photo album was open to my father in his Air Force Uniform arm around the girl. The opposite photo the girl was on stage playing bass. A nice bass guitar it was too. I probably first understood what love was from Sarah. I made a grand gesture of throwing the photo album in the trash. Less than a month after my father’s death Sarah died. Cancer got her too. I was in Tokyo. Barely out of quarantine. I couldn’t make the flight back. I think Sarah would have been okay with that. Sarah knew I’d always been a bit of dreamer.

Steven Karl is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently I HRT the CULT YEARS  (VA Press, 2024). His poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in or are forthcoming from Sixth Finch, Barrelhouse, LIT, and Notre Dame Review. Born in Philadelphia, he currently divides his time between Boston and Tokyo.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx