Barbara Krasner

I Am the Grout of Tesserae Memory

After The Farm by Joan Miró (Spain), 1921-1922

 The red concrete porch floor grounded our secret annex,

the extension of the Manor house out onto the oak-lined

street leading out of town and county. From here I tie

a plastic jump rope through iron railings and make a swing,

elastic to hold my weight and I purvey my domain.

The mosaic mezuzah is the gatekeeper to the annex,

inside crouches its tiny message to bless this home. The door jamb

between then and now, now and when I took it

after my mother’s death and nailed it to my own threshold.

Like the bubble wands we used to create liquid magic,

like the shards of slate to create the landings

between red brick stairs of the white clapboard house,

like the jacks and marbles we tossed around

in circles while it rained, we remained protected

by the grout of our grounding, the caulking of our past.

A Poem about the Assassination of John F. Kennedy

The front brick stairs trip my new patent leather

shoes and I go flying to the slate sidewalk, my knee

ripped yet again. All I wanted to do was show

the girl across the street I have shiny new shoes

that make me feel more grown-up than a first-grader.

My father takes me in his arms and puts me

in the station wagon and off we go to the hospital,

his hands full of my blood. I’ve never been to this place,

with hallways filled with quick padded steps and beeps

and moans. The doctor stitches up my knee

and I will have this scar for life. He gives me

a cherry lollipop for being so brave.

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Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured in more than sixty literary journals, including Here: A Poetry Journal, Nimrod, and Cimarron Review. She is the author of an ekphrastic poetry chapbook, Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press, 2025). She lives and teaches in New Jersey.