Up the basement steps
Lights off, ignore the
shivers, unreal, back turned
on what is not there.
My husband tried to write a poem for me.
First he told me to go to bed.
Then he told me I only had 20 minutes to write my poem.
Then he spouted off rhyming couplets
in iambic pentameter.
They were really bad.
Maybe the honeymoon is really over.
The racist/classist/sexist is unveiled
only when their foot slips off your neck
After my bath as a child,
my dad brushed out my hair.
Only my dad, never my mom.
We sat in the living room,
Dad in his recliner
with me on his lap,
while we watched our evening shows.
I could feel the buttons on his shirt
pressed into my back when I leaned against him.
He patiently took care of the knots
in my waist length hair
while I whined and complained
about my tender head.
When I was eight,
my hair was cut.
Maybe my decision, maybe not,
but I lost something
when I had to start brushing my own hair.
An onion ring, in a pool hall,
Can be an impromptu wedding band
Encircling love and trust
Representing future hopes
But it can also be a stand-in
For degradation
The circle became broken;
Billiards only roll
Where they have been
Pushed to go
When I was little
I used to be a dancer
Primping and prancing
and loving the music
Those stage lights meant nothing
I was thrilled to twirl
and leap
and go so high on my toes
that I could almost touch the sky
Its been a while since
I’ve donned my ballet slippers
But in my sleep last night,
I was dancing once again
Dancing with the man that I love
The wood of the dance floor
traded for the planks of the porch
Carefree in motion as I used to be
The stage lights retired
Making way for the colors
of the sunset
Ending a beautiful day
Stepping on toes
And laughing along the way
I perch on the moon’s edge and reel the girl up to me,
my fishing line of starlight hooked on her sternum.
She is seventeen, dreaming of the coast of Deauville,
hollyhocks and climbing roses, graduation caps,
her own dark red car with violet tinted windows,
auburn hair dye, and porch swings, and friends who wait
over dead phone lines. Her soft face is twisted in terror,
inner elbows pooling fear, old cannulas punctured
a North Star scar, glowing trajectory of my spite.
In my arms, little mirror of mine, she writhes helpless,
shivering at any embrace that isn’t harmful. She pleads,
Will we end up okay? Suspended midair, this horror
of a question hangs, dreamcatcher snared in wind,
silence billowing through. We are the nightmares
caught above the brow of a sleeping child, the one
who existed before us both, unaware of her fate.
She traveled the roads
With him by her side
Allowing him to see this part of her world
It meant taking a chance and letting him into the life she cherished
where it all began
a place that held many memories
the journey filled with love and pain
This new chapter brought her hope not without challenges,
a place she would call home
she let herseld grow
allowed her heart to take a rest
