December 2017
Laurel Peterson
laurelpeterson@att.net
laurelpeterson@att.net
I’ve been writing since I was eight, despite being told that I shouldn’t. Writing revealed too much. This is why I tell my students they should never be afraid to put the truth on the page. I’m a community college English professor, who alternately loves and despairs of her students. I’ve written lots of different things—newspaper columns, academic stuff, poems (including two chapbooks and a forthcoming full-length collection) and a couple of mystery novels, one of which will be published this spring by Barking Rain Press. I have the very great pleasure of serving the town of Norwalk, Connecticut, as its poet laureate. At this very moment, my dog is sniffing through my trash for a draft of something to chew on. My website: www.laurelpeterson.com
Author's Note: This poem is one of the earliest I have a record of, and originates from when I first started writing poems seriously in my mid-twenties. My relationship with my mother has been influenced by my parents' extremely conservative politics. When I came home after college, they disliked the men I chose to date, my consumption of wine, my embrace of the Democratic party, and so on. The poem below represents the fundamental split that developed between us, which has, sadly, never healed.
Madonna/Gypsy
Cynthia--princess on a glass
mountain--inhabits a doll
rocker on your Mother's dresser.
Polyester curls, sewn-on dress,
blue silk eyes are damp-
wiped, polished, pampered.
Pure of mind, Cynthia believes
in the one God in the nightstand
Bible who chains women
to hearth and homemade
baby food.
Slip Cynthia over your head
like a dress to visit your Mother
but don't expect to be polished
or pampered.
You used to slip gratefully from Cynthia to Harriet
when you returned to your solitary apartment.
Sprawled in your basket chair,
Harriet was rearranged nightly
by cat guests. Harriet said
hearths were for fires
and why do homemade
when you could get take-out?
Too many hugs had mussed her
red braids. Tears on her neck
had left mascara stains.
She and her blue green red dress--
tied at the neck for easy removal--
were vacuumed weekly.
Crooked legs ended in
feet with crooked red slippers.
Her frequent tea parties and evenings
of puppet shows--always
with a new stuffed companion--
dissipated her.
Mornings-after were hell
but the memories fueled the tales
she told you--endless
variations on her companions'
exploits with the big fish.
Tell Harriet you regret thinking
you'd outgrown her
and she'd become too
grubby for you.
Apologize because you forgot
her hours of good advice on man problems
and which herbs to plant.
Apologize because Mother persuaded you
all dolls should be Cynthia.
Author's Note: This poem is one of the earliest I have a record of, and originates from when I first started writing poems seriously in my mid-twenties. My relationship with my mother has been influenced by my parents' extremely conservative politics. When I came home after college, they disliked the men I chose to date, my consumption of wine, my embrace of the Democratic party, and so on. The poem below represents the fundamental split that developed between us, which has, sadly, never healed.
Madonna/Gypsy
Cynthia--princess on a glass
mountain--inhabits a doll
rocker on your Mother's dresser.
Polyester curls, sewn-on dress,
blue silk eyes are damp-
wiped, polished, pampered.
Pure of mind, Cynthia believes
in the one God in the nightstand
Bible who chains women
to hearth and homemade
baby food.
Slip Cynthia over your head
like a dress to visit your Mother
but don't expect to be polished
or pampered.
You used to slip gratefully from Cynthia to Harriet
when you returned to your solitary apartment.
Sprawled in your basket chair,
Harriet was rearranged nightly
by cat guests. Harriet said
hearths were for fires
and why do homemade
when you could get take-out?
Too many hugs had mussed her
red braids. Tears on her neck
had left mascara stains.
She and her blue green red dress--
tied at the neck for easy removal--
were vacuumed weekly.
Crooked legs ended in
feet with crooked red slippers.
Her frequent tea parties and evenings
of puppet shows--always
with a new stuffed companion--
dissipated her.
Mornings-after were hell
but the memories fueled the tales
she told you--endless
variations on her companions'
exploits with the big fish.
Tell Harriet you regret thinking
you'd outgrown her
and she'd become too
grubby for you.
Apologize because you forgot
her hours of good advice on man problems
and which herbs to plant.
Apologize because Mother persuaded you
all dolls should be Cynthia.
photo by Ingbet Gruttner
© 2017 Laurel Peterson
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