Recent publications include two anthologies by Sherman Asher, New Mexico:  Written With a Spoonand The XY Files.
I've also been published in many literary and other magazines, including LONG SHOT, THE JOURNAL OF NEW JERSEY POETS, SOUTH TRENTON REVIEW, FROGPOND, FOOTWORK, PROVINCETOWN MAGAZINE, CIELO AZUL, THE BRIDGE

DRESSING MY FATHER
My father was a natty dresser so choosing a tie for him was tricky.
It couldn't be too wide, too narrow, too jazzy, too plain.
It had to say something, but in his voice.
Not for him the clamor of "power ties" nor
the bland safety of the retired.

The shirt-- white, narrow button collar-- had to be sharp, crips,
not stiff.  The handkerchief for the jacket pocket was key:
an accent most men these days would miss.

It was funny dressing him, like dressing a bride,
so much care for clothes worn once then put away.
It was peculiar enough, never having shopped for men's clothes,
assuming strangers would assume I was shopping for some husband,
and those who knew me that I was getting into drag.

Getting, instead, into my father's humor:
Imagining running into someone on the Avenue, them asking,
"I hear you're burying your father?"

Me replying, "Have to.  Dead, you know."

My father was a natty dresser.  We couldn't let him down.
But there was no sense in dressing Pop too formally.
We brought his favorite sports jacket, his new charcoal trousers.
Called for flowers, chose a coffin, handsome, stately yet somewhat
less dear than Tutankhamun's.

They laid him out looking "natural" enough,
his hair swept back in some generic style.
We combed it back down before company came
gently crowning his forehead with his silver waves.