The Brentwood Anthology
I Pretend My Mother Is Not Dead but is bartering at a West LA farmer’s market, her battered shopping cart bulging with her own purple figs, rock-hard guavas, juicy-ripe persimmons. Perhaps she will trade them for fresh brown eggs or shiny eggplant. Or chocolate she’ll store in the freezer because out of sight is out of mind. 12
My mother is buried at Holy Cross with the Catholic movie stars. She herself never met anyone famous unless you count Colonel John Stapp, the rocket-sled man. Mother liked my poems, so long as I said nothing bad about NASA or Charles Lindbergh or my father. But I can’t forget the double martinis my father needed