THE
THRICE-DIVORCED WOMAN
IN THE
LOCKER ROOM
BRAIDS HER HAIR
She’s
been that surge to merge, the whisk of the
waltz,
buttery confections, sizzle and steam; the
comfort
of flannel, coffee percolation; the climb
to
vertigo, the jump to surrender–Lather, rinse
repeat.
But is this failure? What else lasts
a
lifetime? At least each bond lasted long
enough
to matter, just like the seasons
that
silken to sweaty, sift over to
snow. A
bare foot on the bench
braces
for balance as she
separates
three bundles:
lift,
twine and tug to
the
last paintbrush
inch,
satin-flat as
her
palms press,
no
strands astray.
She
knows how
to
start things.
How to
finish
them,
too.
First published in Write City Magazine
ELECTRICITY
On the
cusp of 14, lightning
striking
everywhere, we ate
bowls
of Kraft Mac & Cheese
at
midnight in your canopy bed,
falling
asleep with 1968 Motown
so as
not to miss a single note
beaming
its way from Chicago
WCFL to
your transistor.
With
Dippity-Do, orange juice
cans,
Bonne Bell lip gloss
and
pantyhose, we were knocking
on the
door of this new domain
hoping
to Say a Little Prayer
like
Aretha; be Stevie Wonder’s
“month
of May”; second Smokey’s
emotion,
your radio the spark
to
connect us to what shimmered
beyond
skateboards and candy
necklaces
bought with found nickels.
When we
drifted awake 3 AM,
Archie
Bell & the Drells were dancing
in the
dark, beckoning us to leave
the
tire swing and join the party.
Once we
found out that a boy’s gaze
could
blow a fuse and break the circuit,
we
didn’t want to get passed over nor
left
behind; didn’t want this feverish
heat to
go on another moment
without
us
THE ARTIST ARRIVES TO PACK
UP HER
SHOW, LEARNS
NOTHING
SOLD
and
envies the poet
who
happens upon her book
in the
one-buck-bin
under a
shop awning
with
the inscription
she
once penned there
on the
title page, proof
somebody
read it;
somebody
once held it
in their hands
HOMEMADE FROM SCRATCH
“If you
don’t mind my asking”
are six
words you do mind
and so
does your mother.
The
asker knows this but asks
anyway,
these asking mothers
who
crop up on the playground
while
you’re in the sandbox,
on
see-saws, pony swings.
“Is he
really yours?” that adverb
like
gravel under your tongue
grows
into a boulder, blots out
the
playscape, trees and all.
The
implication is “Where did you
get
him?” and “Why did you have to?”
because
of course every mom
prefers
homemade.
Just
like store-bought cookies
are
second-rate, not what you bring
to the
Easter brunch potluck.
You’re
still pre-K
so your
mother stalls, falters;
she’s
not practiced at this
and
some things cannot ever
be
prepped or rehearsed
such as
when Mrs. Clegg
in the
fourth grade
hands
out shiny worksheets,
draws
with chalk on the blackboard
where
the names are to go
for
your family tree
and
Harriet B. Jiles at the desk
next to
yours claims this is for those
with a Real Family
and
helps herself to the crayon box
you
both have to share, takes the one
with
the sharpest point.
THE “CHOSEN” CHILD CHOOSES
The ‘Given Up’: Practical Tools
for the Adoptee handbook
claims
I am accustomed
to
inhabiting the lead role
in a
mystery novel: who
did this and why?
I study
bus stop mothers
with
their grade school children
who
mimic them in gesture,
take
affection for granted.
In her
summery cottons
with
yellow ribbon that circles
a saucy
straw hat, Elly’s mom
is my
choice, always waves
and
offers a smile to me.
I
decide Elly and me, due to
a
nurse’s mischief, got swapped
at St.
Luke’s, Elly really meant
to play
stand-in for Mrs. Chaken
who
avoids the bus stop, never
wears
blue jeans, stays at home
on
Show-the-Parents Night.
And
now, two decades later,
a
letter from some stranger
declaring
she’s my mother,
wants
to meet at Colectivo
in
downstate Clark County
when
it’s Elly’s mom I adopted
in that
third grade fantasy,
an
allegiance not outgrown
looped
taut like yellow ribbon.
Shoshauna Shy's poems have recently been
published by Pinyon, Front Porch Review, Poetry South and RockPaperPoem.
Author of five collections, she is the recipient of two Outstanding Achievement Awards from the Wisconsin Library Association, and was a finalist for the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid poetry prize sponsored by Winning Writers.
One of her poems was nominated for Best of the Net in 2021, and another longlisted for the Fish Publishing Poetry Prize 2022. Her poems have been made into video, produced inside taxi cabs, and even decorated the hind quarters of city buses.
No comments:
Post a Comment