April 20, 1938 — April 9, 2021

Founding editor of LIPS poetry magazine, Laura Boss was a first-place winner in the Poetry Society of America’s Gordon Barber Poetry Contest. For many years, she and Maria Mazziotti Gillan ran a monthly poetry reading series, the latest manifestation of which took place at the Montclair Public Library in Montclair, New Jersey. Her books include Arms: New and Selected Poems and Flashlight, both Guernica Editions. In 2011, she received the First International Poetry Prize at the International Poetry Festival in Swansee, Wales.

At Six

When I was six,
I wanted to be Catholic like 
my best friend Phyllis
It seemed to my first grade eyes
that being Catholic was so much
better than being Jewish like me--
Phyllis got to have a Christmas tree
trimmed with tinsel, Victorian
Christmas ornaments, a gauzy angel on top,
wrapped presents below
She had a miniature organza bride's gown
with a tiara and veil 
just waiting for her to
wear at her eventual First Communion
And though I went to Yiddish school after
public school where I sat at an old wooden 
desk with other restless Jewish kids,
I envied most of all the books Phyllis 
read at Saint Mary's while I went to Public
School-Number 1 
Even then I knew that Phyllis' Catholic school books 
about the floods and two by two exotic animals
books about danger and death and redemption 
were so much more enthralling than mine that had versions of
"Look, Dick, look!" or
"Run, Jane, run!"
I would have traded myfavoriteSnow Whitedoll
to become Catholic and have exciting primary readers
But my mother was adamant as well as appalled
by my repeated requests to turn Catholic
The morning Phyllis' mother died (though we kids had not realized she had cancer)
I decided in the way kids think that somehow her death was 
due to being Catholic and I decided I'd give up my dream of 
turning Catholic with all its perks, especially Phyllis’ mesmerizing school books since I realized I wanted my mother with me at home
rather than where Phyllis
told me her mother now lived  -- in heaven