The Gathering

There was something about the funeral
It was poorly attended. There were three
of us; myself, my wife, and her son in all.
It took place on Long Island surrounded by the sea.
Beth Moses was the cemetery name. The grounds were bare.
We did not have a rabbi, so I was given a book
to read in English what were Hebrew prayers.
I made it short and spoke instead. At the grave I looked.
It was freshly dug and I smelled the earth. Softly, I said:
“My father was always there for us.
He was honest and we were never misled.
He was a simple man who will be missed.”
As we prepared to leave
crows were gathering in the evergreens.

Unnamed

Because we sat down
and the lights dimmed
the film started.
Because we had not seen the film before we were
attentive. Had we seen the film
before we would have walked out.
Because the night was unpredictable,
though dangerous, it was interesting.
We watched the credits,
though we forgot them immediately.
We stole a quick glance at one another,
even though we knew each other.
The man sitting in front of me
was tall. I only saw the topmost part
of the screen. It was enough to get the gist
of the movie. It was a mystery, I think.
It was a foreign film with subtitles.
I could only read the ends of the dialogue
when it passed the tall man’s head.
I think it took place during wartime
because there were so many shots
of planes and the men wore hats.
It was a period piece, you understand.
I jumped. There was a sound
like the backfire of a truck; someone
was shot. The audience gave way
to sighs. My date pressed
my hand in reassurance. The tall man
got up and left. I was glad even though
someone had to die for it to happen.
From then on, the pace quickened.
They were Germans, alright, Nazis;
you could tell from the haircuts.
In the city square, people swarmed in.
A man on a platform addressed them,
pumped his dominant arm
and they cheered him. The tide shifted.
It was our turn now. The Nazis ran.
They bought tickets to South America.
They tore off the thunderbolts from their collars.
The square was littered with death heads.
The people started dancing. They formed
broken lines in circles like the farandole.
The camera lens was wide angled.
The dancing swelled to the edge.
Then off it went. The audience was dancing.
We were dancing. We moved in and out
and turned in a circle. We danced
into the street. There was such laughter,
it almost sounded like tears falling,
like planes passing, and I wore a hat.

The Arms of Venus

Venus, of the House of Xtravaganza,
was a young boy who was a young girl
who walked the catwalks of the Ballroom
Culture of Harlem. She was sure sinuous,
blonde, light- skinned, thin as any model was
and as she said, there was nothing masculine
about her. She wanted what all girls want:
a home of her own, a family, a man who loved her,
children. She figured in the documentary
Paris Is Burning. It was the highlight of her life
before a camera. She was a natural for it.
She was 23 when they found her.
It was a Christmas morning when the police
were called about suspicious circumstances.
Venus’s body was shoved under a bed
in a seedy hotel room in Manhattan.
She had been strangled.
Her birth mother and her adopted House Mother
are still looking for the killer. No one knows
who did it. Another culture, antagonistic
to the Ballroom Culture, was responsible.
There exists an Executive Order that denies
her existence, that scrubs her from the Book of the Living.
Poor dear, she was enchanting in all those scenes
where she lay in bed even in plastic curlers.

Jack Galmitz was born in 1951 in New York City. He attended the public schools from which he graduated. He holds a Ph.D in American Literature from the University of Buffalo. He has published widely, in print and online journals, including Otoliths, FIxator Journal, Utriculi 2025 issue 2, Offcourse #102, Former People, and others. He lives in New York with his wife.