by Steven Deutsch (June 2024)
![](https://www.newenglishreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/praying-mantis-1024x706.jpg)
Praying Mantis
We always celebrated Easter
with a bucket of KFC,
coleslaw, and biscuits
at the picnic table
in that little park
by the school.
–
No bonnets, no frocks,
no parades.
–
I was seven or eight
the first time
we pulled up in the old
Packard Eight
to unload lunch.
–
All of a sudden,
my potbellied dad
jumped backward
nearly losing the chicken.
–
He pointed to the windshield
where the oddest bug
I’d ever seen
sat goggle-eyed
and grooming.
–
We had learned
from an early age,
that mantises
were never to be disturbed.
“The cops will lock
you away,” my brother offered—
presaging his future,
–
I got up close to stare.
All angles—joints and eyes.
But, I was eight—
the skinniest guy in the neighborhood—
no meat, just joints and blue eyes
that popped from my head.
–
Two bugs sharing a windshield
as the sun starts down.
Roaches
Dad said the tenement shuddered
when the furnace finally
flamed out.
–
It was 1 A.M on a February
Saturday, and by sunrise
there was no way to stay
–
warm. We wore
everything we owned
and huddled over the kitchen stove.
–
Around us,
Brownsville burned.
The tenements
–
and brownstones
had not been kept up,
and needed repairs
–
that went beyond
string and tape.
The landlords fled
–
“to wherever cockroaches
go in the day,” mom said,
with her usual flair
–
for words.
We moved in with
mom’s mom
–
for the next few months
in a tiny apartment
on Riverdale Avenue.
–
My grandmother
hated my father
and fought with my mom,
–
but at night
and in the morning
I was warm.
Seven Mountains
At the top of this hill
is the cabin we shared
when so young
and unworldly
we thought that spring
would last forever.
It was beautiful here.
How could we know
how flimsy
our futures were.
Most nights
we’d sit on the porch
and watch a truck
or two struggle
up seven mountains—
long before the four lane.
Long before our lives
said hurry up.
Time knows
just one direction—
up and over
and on.
Remember the blues
harmonica I once
played. Tunes so
hauntingly sad—
we never understood why,
did we—until time explained it.
Table of Contents
Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and was the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum, helping to create Stanza, a room dedicated to poetry. His Chapbook, Perhaps You Can, was published in 2019 by Kelsay Press. His full length books, Persistence of Memory and Going, Going, Gone, and Slipping Away were published by Kelsay. In 2022, his full length book, Brooklyn, was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press. Seven Mountains will be published this summer.
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