My father loved California and the
Heat.
He’d do cannonballs
Into the neighbors swimming pool
And float with only his nose,
His belly, and his toes
Above the water.

My mother sat in the shade.
With the other wives.
They drank martinis,
Painted their toenails,
And talked about womanly things.

My brother was as pale and thin
As a wisp of smoke
But he could run like the wind.
He found three boys his age
In our new neighborhood
And played basketball and baseball,
Or just ran, fast as he could,
Animated by youth and happiness
And friends.

I was the oldest girl
By far
In the neighborhood,
A block full of babies and
Boys.

I’d swim 100 laps because I could
And because it pleased my father
And then escape inside,
Put lotion on my sunburned nose,
And read.

I was more lonely than I knew.
The loneliness came in flashes
And I swallowed it inside.
I was out of place, not good enough,
Strange and foreign,
Marked like the laundry my Irish mother
Didn’t get clean enough,
Like I, too, should be hanging on the attic,
God’s attic. 

My uncle Stooge’s pigeons could go far away
and still find their way home
But not me.

So I read.
And I wrote.
I wondered and remembered,
Told myself stories I needed to hear,
Stories where I was the hero, the star,
The popular girl, the tap dancer
Or the opera singer.
Stories where I wore tight skirts and black flats
Like the other girls
Instead of brown oxfords and
Puffed sleeves.  

I learned the joy of making things up. 

I wrote about outsiders,
Like Santa Claus going down the wrong chimney
On Christmas Eve
And finding himself in a Jewish home.
I wrote about the handsomest boy in school
Falling in love with the shy, bookish girl. 
And I wrote about masks,
And painted faces,
And swallowing feelings.

Writing was a place to put my sadness
And my joys,
My fears
And tenuous hopes.

Writing saved my life and
Made me who I am.

We moved from Chicago to Los Angeles when I was ten. When asked recently how I liked California, I came up with this.

Los Angeles

With my frizzy perm and
Little puff-sleeved cotton dresses
With sashes that tied in the back into floppy bows,
And brown oxfords, sturdy and roomy enough
To last all year,
I arrived to find California girls,
Mature even in their
Catholic School uniforms.
California girls rolled skirts up shorter and
Tucked white blouses into tiny waists
And tossed their hair in the boys’ direction.

The nuns at my new school didn’t like the way I
Looked or
Talked or
Or that the smartest girl in the class,
Had a whiff of
Polish and
Chicago about her.
You might have crossed your Ts like that
in Chicago,
The nun in my class told me with a sniff,
But we it is not proper here.

And
Those shoes might be acceptable
In Chicago
But they are not correct uniform shoes
Here.

I went home each day
Alone to lie on my bed and
Read.
In a book I could go wherever I wanted—
Home to Chicago, to Grandma and Grandpa, or
Over the ocean or
Back in time and
Imagine myself there.

Sometimes I wrote my imaginings and
My feelings down
But I never showed anyone.
I was supposed to be happy to be in California
Where the sun shone every day
And it never snowed.

I wrote letters to my grandma
Who couldn’t read or write.
My grandpa wrote back,
Enclosing a $2 bill each time
So I knew he still went to the bookie joint.

Who was drinking Green Rivers with him now?
Who helped Grandma make kolachke,
Sticking little fingers into the dough to make
Dents for jelly?
Was Sparkle happy in her new home,
Or was she sad and bedraggled,
Her cocker ears hanging to the floor?

Did the neighborhood kids play
Red Light, Green Light without me?
Did they play Hide and Seek,
Looking for
But never finding
Me?