May 2018
I have been reading about the movement to allow kids to be "free-range." I approve, of course, although it's sad that there even has to be a term for it. For this month of Mother's Day I want to thank my mother, and all the mothers, who allowed their children to encounter the world on their own terms. I am a high school teacher of African and Asian history and culture. More of my poetry can be found at sylviacavanaugh.com
Finding Frozen Peas
I left home and ate stale donuts
from a trashcan
I followed a trail of fool’s gold
to an off-kilter manhole cover
pried it open the rest of the way
I sensed black stallions
nosing silently towards me
down dark tunnels
this seemed like a world
for men so I moved on
I ate wild garlic grass
with dirt on my fingers
my blunt fingernails pinched violets
I sucked on their petals
tasted a single drop of nectar
over and over
gift of the honeysuckle
in late mid-morning
I found a red-haired boy
we played cards for a while
and summoned the dead
later I begged for broken bits
from the side door of a pretzel factory
I found torn out pages
of a used magazine
and laughed at the naked
I peeled off my clothes
deep in the dump
climbed in the claw foot
to bathe in the sun
I launched
from a rope into the white roil
spilling from a half broken dam
I hiked trails through woods
that slow dried my t-shirt and shorts
there were long steel tracks
where I placed a penny
I had my breath flattened out
by the bearing down metal
of the great locomotive
I fondled a snake I found
on the rocks
ate purple mulberries
at the edge of the alley
I climbed the branches
of the thick old tree
when I found my way home
I smelled boiling water
my mother in the kitchen
with her frozen peas
rattling on the stove
Published in Stoneboat Literary Journal
The Ways We Flew
She phoned this evening
from across the country
to tell me of another early death.
We turn 55 this year.
Her straight blonde hair
used to settle
halfway down her back.
We were skinny.
Our rib cages formed ledges
above the tight swoop
of belly below.
She lived in one of the old houses
across from the jail. At thirteen
we began to stride streets at dusk
that in childhood
passed us by
from the back seats of cars.
We walked the concrete slabs
in thin sandals past each stoop or porch
with its dim portal to secret rooms.
Screen doors, like seductive veils
teased over worn out lives.
Each house would secrete the same
days-end scent of cracked plaster,
cigarette ash, old linoleum, and beer.
The pliant lead of paint.
There was the occasional buzz
of possibility as the day’s last
pinpoint platinum jets
etched dreams above us.
We watched the white trails
diffuse like mist.
Sturdy chains with bolts
gripped the wooden planks of swings
at the 6th ward park.
Gray links to grasp,
we pulled upward towards full arc.
Young men
in sloppy work pants
would lean forward from behind
the metal fence,
fingers loosely hooked
above their shoulders.
Jump they’d say Jump
My mascara-ed Michelle
who pumped hard
but never jumped;
who wanted to be wanted
long after the condom broke.
Michelle,
who leaned her hips
against a stove of white,
Michelle
whose cage of bones
encircled her laughter
and even now
in the way she speaks
in the deep cigarette
chuckle of affection
of how she soared on a swing,
soared above me,
while my bones jolted
sudden
to the fast rising ground.
Breath knocked out.
I left home and ate stale donuts
from a trashcan
I followed a trail of fool’s gold
to an off-kilter manhole cover
pried it open the rest of the way
I sensed black stallions
nosing silently towards me
down dark tunnels
this seemed like a world
for men so I moved on
I ate wild garlic grass
with dirt on my fingers
my blunt fingernails pinched violets
I sucked on their petals
tasted a single drop of nectar
over and over
gift of the honeysuckle
in late mid-morning
I found a red-haired boy
we played cards for a while
and summoned the dead
later I begged for broken bits
from the side door of a pretzel factory
I found torn out pages
of a used magazine
and laughed at the naked
I peeled off my clothes
deep in the dump
climbed in the claw foot
to bathe in the sun
I launched
from a rope into the white roil
spilling from a half broken dam
I hiked trails through woods
that slow dried my t-shirt and shorts
there were long steel tracks
where I placed a penny
I had my breath flattened out
by the bearing down metal
of the great locomotive
I fondled a snake I found
on the rocks
ate purple mulberries
at the edge of the alley
I climbed the branches
of the thick old tree
when I found my way home
I smelled boiling water
my mother in the kitchen
with her frozen peas
rattling on the stove
Published in Stoneboat Literary Journal
The Ways We Flew
She phoned this evening
from across the country
to tell me of another early death.
We turn 55 this year.
Her straight blonde hair
used to settle
halfway down her back.
We were skinny.
Our rib cages formed ledges
above the tight swoop
of belly below.
She lived in one of the old houses
across from the jail. At thirteen
we began to stride streets at dusk
that in childhood
passed us by
from the back seats of cars.
We walked the concrete slabs
in thin sandals past each stoop or porch
with its dim portal to secret rooms.
Screen doors, like seductive veils
teased over worn out lives.
Each house would secrete the same
days-end scent of cracked plaster,
cigarette ash, old linoleum, and beer.
The pliant lead of paint.
There was the occasional buzz
of possibility as the day’s last
pinpoint platinum jets
etched dreams above us.
We watched the white trails
diffuse like mist.
Sturdy chains with bolts
gripped the wooden planks of swings
at the 6th ward park.
Gray links to grasp,
we pulled upward towards full arc.
Young men
in sloppy work pants
would lean forward from behind
the metal fence,
fingers loosely hooked
above their shoulders.
Jump they’d say Jump
My mascara-ed Michelle
who pumped hard
but never jumped;
who wanted to be wanted
long after the condom broke.
Michelle,
who leaned her hips
against a stove of white,
Michelle
whose cage of bones
encircled her laughter
and even now
in the way she speaks
in the deep cigarette
chuckle of affection
of how she soared on a swing,
soared above me,
while my bones jolted
sudden
to the fast rising ground.
Breath knocked out.
© 2018 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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