MEMORIES OF TARSALA

She seemed to fly into our world

from out of nowhere — our lives

would never be the same.

Her black eyes had a strange light

of music that she hummed.

Even in the second grade

her hips swayed as she walked,

teasing boys to chase her home

where she played spin the bottle

with a Ouija board in a dark house.

Nobody was ever home.

She read our palms and told us

we would see stars when she taught

us how to soul kiss in a dark closet.

We tasted food we never ate, —

mamaliga, givetch and snail soup,

left for her each day by Mother.

Well before the Salk vaccine,

we didn’t know what she was crying for

when she warned us to stay away

from a classmate who ended up

in an iron lung.

She told us the Brooklyn Dodgers

would lose the World Series in ’41.

She trained her yipping Dachshunds

with sign language commands, to sing

in harmony while she strummed

on a guitar.

Serene in her knowing,

no one understood how she knew

such cryptic messages well before

the age of computers.

We were all drawn to her

like Lemmings about to swim

over a cliff because of the innate

power of her perfume.