May 2021
Bio Note: I was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia
in the first class admitting women. My creative side has flourished here in Kansas City, MO, where I’ve now lived
more than half my life. But I will always be a Virginian and miss the ocean and the abundance of seafood. This issue's
remembering theme took me back home to the coast.
Against All Odds
For JKW
The home court advantage
and every other advantage
belonged to Jim, a high-school
basketball star.
Every disadvantage dogged me:
half-blind, dinky, girlie girl
with no depth perception.
Two feet shorter and four years
younger than Captain Jim.
He dwarfed the other guys, too,
until his kid brothers also grew
into sequoias. So why me?
I had an important role to play:
Jim’s #1 handicap.
No one whined, jeered,
or suggested I be cheerleader.
I was even spared school-sanctioned
bullying: being picked last.
The youngest, smallest, female,
and most inept players automatically
played on Jim’s team. I qualified
on all counts!
One night stands out from sticky,
summer memory. I tripped, and time
slipped into slow motion – the way it does
when danger comes for you.
My mind replays that reel.
Here comes the ground! I brace
for impact. Then zwoop, zwoop, zwoop!
The reel rewinds! Jim grabs
the back of my collar with one hand
and sets me back on my feet
as he dribbles toward the basket.
Of course, he doesn’t remember.
The MVP never needs to brag.
Summer Nights at the Ocean View Fishing Pier
Norfolk, Virginia My red wagon chanted magic – ka-Dunk, ka-Dunk, ka-Dunk, ka-Dunk – at last, at last, at last, at last – as it rode the planks on the pier. Coolers, fishing gear, everything we’d need to spend the night. The amusement park lights went out, taking away the roar of voices and laughter, leaving just the cool, the blessed cool. The sea now a black sky with green moons cast from the pier lamps. I liked to fish in those circles of light to see what I was pulling up. The croaker, spot, rock fish, or flounder for Sunday supper or things that made me squeal for Daddy: eels, blowfish, crabs. Sleep, sleep, sleep, said the surf as I curled on a bench. Mama and Daddy continued to cast out. They woke me when sun broke the spell.
Originally published in Kindred (defunct)
©2021 Alarie Tennille
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It is very important. -JL