Three Poems by Candice Kelsey

 

Nerf Guns 

 

A collection of grey and orange Nerf guns will not make my foster son

popular with the other kids in the neighbourhood, his teammates at soccer.

 

Neither the N-Strike Elite, the Zombie Strike, nor the Nerf Blaster he has

arranged in a meticulous circle on the living room floor will bring a playdate

 

from the boys in the Kentwood neighbourhood of Westchester, California— even

from LAUSD’s own Kentwood Elementary School with its diverse population.

 

I imagine Copernicus and Galileo with their rudimentary telescopes researching

sunspots, afraid to challenge Cardinal Bellarmine and the Holy Scriptures

 

over geocentrism versus heliocentrism. I see his young body, the darkest kid

on our street, taking a seat on the floor. He centers himself with the grace

 

of a celestial body, like some astronomical model hanging from the ceiling 

of a 4th grade classroom. I fear he will soon learn that safety won’t revolve 

 

around him, that the things we use to protect ourselves routinely fail. Sometimes

I wish our imaginations could do the heavy lifting. He tells me no one can 

 

hurt me now. I write his name into my poems, pray he never forgets he is loved

by us, by God. When we taught him how to swim, I wondered who could

 

ever harm this buoyant boy, the silver-blue water washing over him like stars.

Bea Arthur’s Stare 

 

for the rumoured twenty-three seconds,

in Mame at the Winter Garden on Broadway,

toward Bosom Buddy Angela Lansbury

for describing her character’s age as somewhere

between forty— and death

 

is really nothing compared to the daggers

my mother & her sisters exchange

some days at the Olio Restaurant & Bar

like daughters of Zeus not discussing art but

brands & shades— of hair dye.

 

Study the masters, Lucille Clifton tells us. How

I’ve studied her & Tretheway & Laux,

watching their labour, inviting the craft to sing

in me. Also, I study my mother & her sisters,

— but run from them

 

unlike Kwame Dawes’ approach to poetry. I

run to it, he explains to us in a workshop. When

Beverly asks for an honest answer Dawny,

Debbie, & Jeannie after too much Riesling,

is my hair a shade too blonde—

Dave

upon visiting my father-in-law at his assisted living facility 

You looked tennis club today—

court soft, smoothed comb, iced Diet

Coke hellos

 

But later court room returned— trial’s golden child

radiating. Lexus full of purpose,

free hotel coffee on the bench seats,

legal pads on the dashboard,

corgi hair in the back,

a laminated saint— altar boy devotion.

 

What is lost when memory ceases

is the power to love

 

the once laughter, the lately empty

talk, the longing for recognition— we all want

closeness, but

 

distance wants us more.

 

Try, our conscience whispers. Call,

you trembling children. You drops of frozen rain.

Lost and lamenting Icarus’

 

waxy water. Hurricanes appear too often

which is why the coastal soul is steel. Wildfires protest,

but temperate days make new mazes green,

feathery, yarn-strewn. An extended hand.

 

Build wings from the candle drip. Step

into the primal cold.

CANDICE KELSEY teaches writing in the South. Her poetry appears in Poets Reading the News and Poet Lore among other journals, and her first collection, Still I am Pushing, explores mother-daughter relationships as well as toxic body messages. She won the 2019 Two Sisters Writing's Contest and was recently nominated for both a Best of the Net and a Pushcart. Find her at www.candicemkelseypoet.com