Two Poems | Nj Ladynj

August Macke Unter den Lauben in Thun 1913



Leave yourself a reminder

in the black Camry parked in the driveway
strapped, trapped, in her car seat
where temperatures can rise quickly
with the sun shining down on a 70-degree day
a 21-month old baby dies
alone
in Lakewood, NJ
abandoned by her parents
who had a “miscommunication”

no charges have been issued
no blame has been placed

““…parents should leave something in the
back seat with their child like a wallet, purse
or phone as a reminder that a child is in the
backseat.” (Thank you, Dr. Shah, you dick!)

Once
you would tie a string around your
finger to remember …or jot yourself a note

*Pick up a gallon of milk. Take out the garbage. *
*Drop off the dry cleaning. Pay the rent.*

how many times did you have to remind yourself
that there was a baby in the back seat?

who could blame the parents though?
those who live in a time when satellites
reset our electronic clocks for daylight savings;
and bells ding in our cars when our seatbelt
isn’t secured or our headlights turn off
automatically; or bills are set up for auto-pay
so we don’t get electric or gas shut-off notices
or aren’t evicted from our homes.

maybe they were waiting for a text message
reminder to tell them that their baby’s system
would overheat and she would die if no one
removed her from the hot car.
But they never thought about her.
They forgot about her.

*Forgot* about her.

“So when you get out of the car you do not forget
your kid because you have to grab your wallet,
your cell phone and any other important valuables.”

Important valuables? Ok, run the list: I got the milk, my wallet,
the dry-cleaning ticket, my cell phone, our 4-year-old daughter
who was also in the backseat in her own child seat next to the baby…
…hmmmm, anything else?

Oh, wait. This wasn’t the parents’ fault.
That’s right. It was the miscommunication between them.

How so? Oops, now we have *two* gallons of milk?
Nope. Not that.

It was a *tragic* loss of life.

It took a neighbor to find the lifeless girl,
unresponsive to EMS attempts.

I can’t help but wonder what miscommunication occurred – or how the hours
in the house together passed between husband and wife. When does one stop
and ask the other, “Where’d you put the baby?” Apparently never.

I want to know this child’s first name so it can fall off my lips in a
whisper of prayer.

*From a culmination of recent news about this tragedy leading up to the
article by News12 New Jersey, May 7, 2019, Lakewood “Authorities:
Miscommunication may have led to child being left to die inside hot
car*






While reading Andy Warhol

the dying just keep dying
the living keep on living
warm shit sits in a liquor store bag

the strong walk long on
borrowed circus stilts
head in vacuum, skull a balloon
drift from night to noon

waist-high waste and dirt
truth tastes fake

crayon plaster drip
past clown lips crooked
grin mute stitch

fingertips spit solo knock
hollow eyes tire of listening to self
letters line up on conveyor belts
waiting to spill into the tray

fill the non-page, hide in a wig.