Like Sandberg's Fog

The smooth gray cat walks in shadows

then passes into light,

padding its way

from invisibility to invisibility.

The memory of you

swims in the glow of its golden eyes,

those embers

soon to grow dark

in the sleeping softness of cat purrs.

Soft fall its eyelids,

softer its breath—

and before I know it,

you are dressed and out the door.

Hamburgers

Flat, fatty patties,

sizz-sizz-sizzling!

The pocket-change burgers of my youth

filled my stomach on nights when I was in a hurry

to leave my family table.

At fifteen, twenty cents each,

they perfumed the inside of Eddie’s forty-one Dodge.

White Castles were mere hors d’oeuvres,

and we piled accusing pyramids,

ziggurats of tiny blue-and-white boxes,

on the midnight stoops of friends

who failed to partake with us

on our nightly beefy forays.

But only Hubie’s Hut on Little Neck Turnpike

had patties that sizzled,

And we sang his song:

“Who stole my heart away?

Who makes me feel so gay?

-- Hubie’s!

He’s a hut!”

Hamburgers today are

flattened meatball excesses

spawned on backyard grills

by fat guys in aprons.

They are not

what I remember

at the back of my tongue:

Yum-yum!

Flat, fatty patties sizz-sizz-sizzling!