Three Poems by Ann Privateer

 

My Life

My life is a poem
It looks for brokenness
To recreate and fix
This obsession leaves me
With boxes and boxes
Of poems I’ve written
Through ages of my life
From “…walking in the woods
munching a carrot…” to
“…Sometimes incredulous.”

Stories, poems, thousands
Boxed up words gathering dust
They thank me for their life
Even though it’s unsung
Some old poems return
A line, an image, old
Yet somehow new today
Come home to play with me
Stay, I’ll recreate you
Wait while I pour some tea.

My Childhood

When I was a child
I loved to watch men shave
Grandpa used a straight edge
That he sharpened
On a leather strap
My Dad used an ordinary
Tool I would use years later
To shave my legs.

Being an only child
I liked to see folks naked
Grandma’s breasts looked
Like slithering pancakes
After nursing ten babies
My Dad took a bath
In our tub and covered
His private parts
With a washcloth
Grandpa sat on a chair
In his bathtub while Dad
Washed him.

Dreaming

I was sleeping, taking a nap
The telephone’s ringing
Woke me up, as I walked
Into the parlor to answer
The phone I thought, it’s
My mother calling me
But no, only a telemarketer
My mother died years ago.

I must have been dreaming
Funny how dreams don’t play
By the same rules that we
Must live by, dreams bypass
Reality, they jumble up
Experiences into something
New, sometimes believable
Sometimes incredulous.

By Ann Privateer