It is a long and teary hug at happy hour
Between friends who share life’s moments–
The cold and the hot, the dark and the light–
And you can see it all in their bright faces
When they pull apart from each other.
So here i am in the dark corner, watching,
The outside of the table jabbing my ribs,
My drink taken away before i’d finished,
My mouth dry and with no one to talk to
And feeling quite like a girl at a middle school dance.
And after everything that i have built up
In the past twenty years–my marriage,
My career, my traveling, my three young girls–
I haven’t built up a friendship that would
Ever offer me such a hug.
The loneliness clings to the edges of my days
As my girls begin to find their place in the world,
Spending all afternoon up the street, online,
Arranging one social event or read fest after another,
Needing me less and less.
And that is why this happy hour stings my soul
As clusters share their weekend party plans,
Their impending wedding reception,
Their last escapade at the dancing dive bar…
None of which have or will include me.
And on year four in this place where my students’ love
Fills my days with hope for a better future,
I still have a longing, an inkling of loss
That trails behind me, wishing i could be someone else,
Someone worthy enough to be a friend.
parenting
The Last Conference
at conferences she swings her legs
back and forth, swish… kick
and murmurs her replies,
her set-to-be bragging portfolio of pride
melted into a subtle acceptance
of just good enough
and with all eight eyes on her
she hears the same words
she’s heard for six years:
Talk more.
(when all the world is a whirlwind of noise
and she has the quiet demeanor of one who always listens, always knows)
and the rims of her eyes redden
after hearing the judgey truth too many times, and before a word escapes
her last-year-in-elementary lips,
they’re telling her not to cry.
they beg us then for questions, concerns,
wanting to fill in the ten minute gap that hangs like a carcass between us,
but my words are swallowed too,
behind my own quiet tears,
my own red-rimmed eyes,
and all i can hear is Scout’s voice
proclaiming that school is a lesson in Group Dynamics,
and my girl, my baby, doesn’t fit into that mold.
instead we fill the hallway with sing-song voices
to banter with her older sister,
one year ahead and one million years mouthier,
and my tears melt and her eyes soften and we move on.
we step into the cold autumn night and she clings to each of our hands, unwilling to pull away,
her last-year-of-elementary heart still as soft as six years back,
still my little girl trying to find her place in this whirlwind world.
Saturday Night Fever
on Saturdays we cut out grass
and bend bits of metal
and win medals in Tae Kwon Do
and watch weird episodes of a modern drama
while the oldest babysits
and oh how our life has changed
from changing diapers to ours changing diapers
and we go to bed hours after
the joy of slipping off clothes
to slide into fleece pajamas
with kittens in our laps
and just love love love
that we. can. relax.
The Terror of Being Female
i can’t believe our world this week–
surrounded by the same chauvinistic bullshit
my liberal baby-boomer parents raised me up against.
and it’s 2016 and i have three daughters and a man, a husband,
a born-and-bred Southern Baptist-raised Tennesseean, whose thoughts couldn’t enter the realm of filth so flippantly tossed
into the national spectrum
and we have a First Lady
who should be our Queen
whose words get twisted on my newsfeed within twenty-four hours
by. A. White. Man.
and i want to grab the world by its ears and shake some sense into it and put him in a swimming pool at age thirteen and have a hand slide up into his swimsuit.
and put him on a bicycle at age fourteen and on the middle of a spring day have a creeper follow him home and chase him into an alley and expose himself to him.
and i want to put him in the college library at age sixteen and have a stalker creep up behind him trying to reach up his shorts when he’s just searching for a poem by William Blake.
And I want him to go fuck himself and his white male privilege that I have never seen in my home–the home of my birth or my marriage–even in all its whiteness
And I want him to feel that terror of being female. Because every woman I know has had icy blood running through her veins in those moments of harassment and assault that have plagued us for all of time.
But he won’t. Trump won’t apologize and he would argue till the day runs dark, and all i can do is pray to a god i don’t believe in that my three daughters don’t face the same fate. That they will find a home as safe as mine with a man as good as my father or husband and a world better than the one we have set before them now.
Because it’s all i can do. Because i moved away in the pool and told my father about the flasher and left that library.
Because i’m writing this now and somewhere in the world eyes are reading it and taking one moment to hear that terror slip out of my veins and transform into the truth that makes me Silent. No. More.
This Pussy Will Save Us!
RelaxiCat
a kitten in lap
as autumn weather sets in:
better than the beach
Seasonal Cat Disorder
a sweet striped tabby
named Snickers in October
brings joy to autumn
Over the Hump
piano serenade while cooking
and a collegial shout out to the king
can make a hump day joyful
in this little life we live
Tuesday, Taught
the kid argument
that plagues my mornings and nights
chips away my soul
Bites and Pieces
somewhere between the data crunch
that swallows all planning time,
the tech issues that chew up a third of every class,
the common planning that gnaws into bitching about work,
emailing counsellors about kids who’ve bitten off more than they can chew,
grading grammar that nibbles away time with my own kids…
there’s a teacher waiting,
the entrée of this piecemeal,
ready to share the most delectable taste
of what this world asks and offers.
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