did not know the charm grafted to the sole of his foot:
he did not die.
In time he met the mascara-faced man
and the woman with the tattooed smile.
He sampled war,
his day brightened with the first snow,
his scar changed color with the thaw,
but he could not understand its purple and green,
its red to yellow,
the fold of skin at his heel,
the fractures of bent toes and injured toenail.
When he took his first lover, everything saddened within him
and when she left him months later,
he cried night after night.
Only the first snow in the year of the child soldier
pulled him away,
and he went on living,
one century changing to another.
He fell in love with sad-faced clowns,
had many bad luck children,
never ceased at the wonder of first snow,
and the river changed course twice in his lifetime,
the bottom of his foot able to find every rock to cross,
every foothold to keep from drowning:
The wisdom of his foot,
the markings of eyeliner and dark rouge,
the long lines he recited and the short ones he wrote down,
the way a smile is a frown:
The prophesy of birthright did not come to pass.

# # #

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011) and Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011). Brownstein taught elementary school in Chicago’s inner city (he is now retired), but he continues to study authentic African instruments, conducts grant-writing workshops for educators, designs websites and records performance and music pieces with grants from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Oppenheimer Foundation, BP Leadership Grants, and others. http://projectagentorange.com/

Photo credit: Terri Malone