They told me If I signed up for the tour,
They would show us ghosts
That had lingered in Grand Central Terminal for decades.
I'm not sure who I expected
To see there haunting those marble halls.
Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, the railroad titans of yesteryear,
Smoking cigars in the Campbell Apartment
Or the screaming passengers of the great Park Avenue Tunnel crash of 1902
Or the nameless, faceless drug addicts who curled up in the corners
Of the Great Hall in New York’s bankrupt Seventies.
Instead, I saw a girl
Muffled in a dirty Burberry coat,
Her high school kilt, knee socks and Wallabees poking out from under it,
Clutching a copy of The New York Times.
I saw her pale and shivering by the great clock,
Scanning the classifieds, desperately looking for work,
Typing, making coffee, answering the phones,
Anything to put a few dollars in her pocket to stay in New York City.
Scary to think that ghostly girl who wanders those halls was me.


Rosalind Resnick

Oct. 25, 2016

You said you can never forgive me
For what I did to you.
You said I broke your heart,
Crushed your dreams,
Left you for dead on the side of the road.
But who was I, the author of those villainous deeds,
And who were you, the victim of my treachery,
Entangled in our delirious drama so long ago.
We were both just children then
And all our molecules and atoms have since been replaced
By billions more.
By hurting, we have been hurt.
By changing others, we have been changed.
By living, we have been humbled.
How can you say that you can never forgive someone
Whom you have never known?


Rosalind Resnick

Oct. 18, 2016

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman.

You were the superheroes of my youth.

Fighting crime, flying high above the skyscrapers of Gotham City,

Crusading for truth, justice and the American way.

Kryptonite be damned, those criminals didn't stand a chance with you.

But we cheered you on, knowing from the start that you were going to beat them.

Maybe it's just me, but, man, you guys are getting old.

Sure, you made the leap from comic books to movies and video games,

But, behind the mask, I can see the gray hair and the wrinkles.

Botox, anyone?

Like aging rock stars, you croon your greatest hits on stage

With your creaky voices and your vintage guitars.

Left wing or right, you're all part of the establishment now,

A billion-dollar franchise out to milk the public for every dollar it can get.

Where have all the superheroes gone?

Hillary, Trump, the Libertarians, the Greens.

Give me a hero fresh off the page,

Dripping with ink still wet,

An old-school hero in a new school disguise.

Give me a hero who will fight.


Rosalind Resnick

Sept. 29, 2016