A thing
grew inside me once.
This was during a time I can’t return to.
Not that I want to return
except on days I do want to
in order to observe the thing growing
with a wholeness I grew inside me in the time
since.
Tag: flash poetry
123 days
There are 123 days left until 40.
1 – 2 – 3
and like that I will be
Over the Hill.
Which hill?
The hill there
footsteps away?
The Tel?
Tell me.
It’s a curious time.
This tick tocking of clock
measured quietly
uncertain
alone
without labels I’ve grown accustomed to
a “Jean Val Jean” moment in time, says my husband.
“Who am I?”
1-2-3 and I will be 40.
Over the Hill.
Not Under it.
A blessing
Not dead becomes a blessing when
1-2-3
one is 40.
Remember when dead was unimaginable, unthinkable?
When youth was a fortress of solitude with its fangs sunk into the taut skin of our necks?
Sure, there was always AIDS hanging over our upper middle class halos.
And a little bit of cancer.
But now there is cancer
of everything.
It ate away at the fangs of youth — replaced them
Sunk into Breast. Stomach. Skin.
Now, there is the echo of anomaly
Brain. Lung. Ovary.
“What’s that?”
A tag. A growth. A lump.
1-2-3 and you become
Much too aware.
Too much care taken in the shower
soaping up lathering up the sides of once-breasts
Too much care taken in the reflection
smoothing sprouting silver down
Too much care taken in front of a lens
facing right, facing left, facing the side with less shadows.
Filter me.
1 – 2 -3 until 40.
Over Under but what about
On the Other Side
I hold out hope
that walking through the door of 40
is like opening the front door of the Gale farm
after a wicked storm.
1-2-3
technicolor works its magic
and life becomes more richly lived
in never before seen hues of
yellow green and blue.
* * *
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Why does my story matter?
This is my question today.
And usually every Wednesday.
Or Tuesday.
Depends.
Why does my story matter?
Okay, so I can weave words in a way sometimes
that makes you almost cry
that makes you remember the time you had blintzes in that cafe on 2nd Avenue
that makes you look frantically in the closet for the sundress you know you didn’t sell at Buffalo Exchange — you know it, you just know it, but where IS it — for a pair of people earrings that looked like the ones you got at Accessory Place with babysitting money
that makes you comb the recesses of your mind for the smell of your grandmother’s perfume
that makes you wish you didn’t throw away your walkman
or your diary from 5th grade the one with the pink plastic cover that you got for free with a magazine subscription that said
“I got my period today.”
Sometimes I do that to you.
I make you remember.
Is that enough to make my story matter?
Sometimes I write what comes to me and what comes to you is like what comes to me
and it makes you miss someone
or kiss someone
or call someone
or, better yet, write them a letter
or draw them a picture or make them a mixed tape.
Or send them back the mixed tape they made for you once.
Or twelve of them.
Does that make my story matter?
Sometimes
on Wednesdays
or Tuesdays
Depends —
I wonder why I write.
I wonder my story matters.
I wonder why it can’t just live inside me
just inside me
just there
for me.
What must I tell you?
Why must I make sense of it?
Why must I
make it beautiful
or agonizing
or wonderous?
Why must I?
Pretty lies
If I could play piano as deftly as I do in my dreams
If I could sing and you could hear the rich tones I do when my voice echoes in my ear
If I could put down words, the true ones that bubble up and swell in my heart
This is what I would bring forth into the world.
Something like this:
But I only tap, tap, tap a little Heart & Soul
I only whisper my skirmish with harmony
I reveal the yellows, the pinks, the browns of my soul only.
Not so much of the blues.
Or the blacks.
Pretty lies. Only pretty lies.
The small victories of a working mother — flash poetry
“There’s a clean shirt in your backpack!”
<Door slams! Bam!>
First
to sign up for parent-teacher meetings.
Small victory.
Showed up on time —
early pick up, after all.
Small victory.
Pushed the migraine aside
(til tomorrow)
in order to be present
today
for preschool Chanukah party, songs, dance, and black light.
Huge victory.
Grater?!? Where’s the grater?
Found it.
And it’s clean.
Ready to make latkes. Here you go.
Take it. Take the potato, too. Wait don’t forget it’s late already past over there under the couch no upstairs in your room under the laundry basket i don’t know maybe okay fine call me at work later and let me know you’re home so I don’t worry I’m always worried what did you eat today tomorrow I promise tomorrow i know I’m sorry on Monday.
I’ll make it to the party on time.
Clean shirt in his backpack. Clean shirt. He’s got a clean shirt.
The almost, so-very-lost, art of the letter
I’ve been finding letters.
Long lost letters.
Long saved letters.
Long ago, written-by-hand letters.
As and Es and Is strung together to form laughter and love and pain.
Through my veins runs remorse
then retraction
as I read the letters aloud.
Loopy script
Straight uppercase caps
Bubbled Oooos and lowercase bees
All of them stamps of time and postmarks of personality
Who knew then that you were a poet, dear Friend?
Who knew that you could dance with your words, dear Lover?
Who knew, Mother, that you missed me with an ache you hid away so I would never know
until I, too, was a mother?
Aching…
Who knew then
what I know now?
Did you?
And I simply
missed it?
Did you know I would read your words aloud
and fall in love with a version of you I never knew?
