Sacred Romance (Stay)

Sweet Ancient of Days,

Come to me wearing any disguise:

thorny rose
soft-footed snow
mournful wind
or rain tippity-tapping my window pane;

romance me, though all around me prove false,
though come nightfall the darkling air throbs with menace most foul;

though mountains shake
and the hills be removed, romance me even then, or not at all.

I will learn to love the snow because of you
learn to pick out the disparate notes of your serenaded love in melancholy music
in the fresh smell of cotton dresses steamed under the iron,
in the remembrance of my father's laughter, though now its merry swirl is not meant for me.

Wear wood smoke as your cologne
and autumn's vulgarity of colors as bold contrast to my drab little self.

Like a blind woman whose fingertips have grown accustomed to Braille
and to the unique texture of things, I will caress the barks of trees
the familiar landscape of knee scabs;

will tremble with the desire to be
the warp and woof of your weaver's loom,
my self woven (bones, hair and all) into a gorgeous tapestry,
another kind of tapestry than what I dreamed I could be.

Ancient of Days,

my dreams are too big for me,
my child's hands drop them clumsily
even as I blink back tears at my ineptness, my lack of grace.

I turn at the slightest rustling sound
my ears keen for your approach.

Oh! I love you so,
I betroth myself to you
to your light in my baby brother's eyes,
and to the sound of your lullaby meant just for me
in the sighing of falling embers
and in sun drenched streets I dare not explore without you.

Sweet Ancient of Days:

tarry with me one more hour
linger near while mother frowns over the stove
and the stepdad smirks at my stupidity;

stay lest my soul wither away
and I lose myself for want of you.

Stay. 

After the Storm

After the storm, my brother
(all gangly knees and elbows)
bore the brunt of its ferocious aftermath.

Every day after school
I watched his wiry biceps bulge a little
as his handsaw scritched against the tree
which had fallen diagonally across our front yard.

I witnessed the violence of metal on wood,
 the violence of The King of the Mountain’s smirk
as he too watched, his greedy eyes
taking in my brother's razor sharp collar bone,
with jaw set in furious concentration.

This imposed punishment was meant to goad my brother,
meant to tempt him to rage
so that the next time the stepdad slugged him
he would feel justified, holy even.

Kneeling on scratchy couch to watch
I scrunched my shoulders,
Folding into myself like an accordion,
gathering myself up to make of me something smaller;

I pressed my knees together
wrapping my arms around them
and lowered my head,
waiting for the sky to rain trees
with swollen trunks, and branches thrust skyward
as if warding off a sickening impact with earth.

My brother, it seems,
must be punished for the crime of
his existence;

for this the stepdad’s eyes shone bright,
bright as the heavy duty flashlights
he begrudgingly loaned my brother
so he could work far into the night.

His eyes fairly burned with lust—
The lust of sadism’s glee.
I saw him lick his lips;
You’d have thought he’d conjured up this
Columbus Day Storm  all by himself
for the sole purpose
of proving to my brother
that he had no right
to co-exist with him in the same universe.

I watched until my eyes burned
and my head ached dully
and my brother, sweating and chilled,
laid down his saw
swiped his arm across his forehead,
and straightening up, met my wary gaze
with the scoured look
of shame whittled down into hatred,
sawn away into stumpy pieces like an old tree trunk.

After the storm my brother cleaned up nature's wrath.
He stood a little taller and his eyes, when they met his abuser's,
burned unflinching.

After the storm we feigned memory loss
Pretended that nothing had shifted in our family dynamic.
We sat down to meals silent and repressed and picked up our forks
as if the stepdad hadn't just won a major battle,
as if my brother's days in that household were not numbered.

Debut

I'm wearing your resentment
mother,
a garment woven strong,
seam-stitched
with the deceptively fragile thread
of your incalculable anger
at my existence.

The hem trails long;
I trip and stumble
as you watch through slitted eyes
this clumsy ballet of sour shame.

The pin curls wound
around your knowing fingers
wink their sly perfection
at my little girl ineptness,
at the folly of being me.

The Blossoming

Our wills clashed
over the wooden ring I coveted
and bought with my own money
on a family vacation.

What harm? I wondered
while you voiced your vehement disapproval,
leaving me with the typical worn to a nub guilt trip,
“Do what you want if you won’t follow the church’s teachings…”

What we fought
what we fought about, mother,
was more than the circumference of a smooth carved ring

perched cool on my bare finger:

You interpreted my budding breasts
as a kind of treachery,
and all my unadorned fingers

(with their unpainted nails)
couldn’t hide the fact of my blossoming femaleness.

I wore knee socks
with jumpers
longer than anyone else,
pretending not to see my classmates’ shiny nylons
on keen flashing legs,
even while my restless fingers ached to stroke their cashmere sweaters
worn with such brazen ease.

 Girls who mattered,
(the ones boys whipped around to check out
when their names rang out
during roll call)

held their manicured hands
in dangled fashion
like bunches of keys
attached to their wispy waists,
by which they gained admittance
to the cool clique with its
ratted hair
kohl rimmed eyes

 
and tentative petting
(over the clothes only) in cold  back seats.
Having nothing to prove
( for they had no need to earn their worth)
they could afford to set rules,
could dare to boldly cut their eyes
at panting boyfriends
and patiently slap away square hands
fumbling with nylon encased flesh.

You often accused me of stealth--
but I was not the sneak, mother,
not the pilferer
or thief.
I wanted
only what was mine:

to blossom naturally
without the topic of  my puberty
being the theme of jesting dinner time conversation.

For oh!  There are so many means
of hobbling daughters.
One has only to convince them
of their ugly pinched selves
while shoving begrudged flesh
into drab dresses and childish, outgrown jumpers
meant to hide a burgeoning beauty.

One has only to deny
the blossom on the rose
and, come twilight,
wilting has set in,

and with it
a kind of root rot
for which there is no cure.

Drooping, the head lolls
and caves in on itself,
Becomes another sort of obscenity:

the obscenity of beauty deliberately destroyed.

Thus decapitated
thus hobbled,
I knelt beside my bed,
knobby knees  stabbing the hardwood floor like knives,
my body swaying slightly with the wanting of it
knowing it was hopeless to ask
(but-- in for a pound in for a penny:)

Dear God,
may I please
please may I wear my ring,

and not go to hell for it.

Amen.

 

Rough draft

I’m writing you out of my soul

using colorful adjectives to describe
the audacity with which you
pummeled and terrorized me,

preening in your fruit-of-the-looms
as if I were a lover
to be wooed and seduced,
as if I wanted more
than to eat my morning cereal in peace,
spoon held tightly
in child-sized hand.


(Oh, see how I erase the careless smudge marks
you left on the tablet of my heart!)

You are reduced to

a mere typo on paper,
the mistake of you magically rectified
with spell check,
an adult’s version of a child’s sturdy pink eraser.

(“What are you writing—a book?”
this followed by your caustic laugh
and your sadistic game of playing keep away
with my lined tablet…)

And all the while the writer in me
took note,
remembering my teacher’s admonishment
to use the most descriptive adjectives,

and
to avoid using a passive voice
in my writing.

“What I Did Last Summer”
was a confounding assignment
for I couldn’t very well write:

“I spent my summer vacation dodging my stepdad’s advances,
hiding in my  backyard fort every chance I got,
and turning my head, pretending not to see
the shame of his nakedness.”

I’m writing you out of my soul
the nub of my pencil
scritching the comfort of truth
on every line, knowing you can’t snatch away my tablet now,

can’t mock my passion for words
or stop me from writing
what I really did
all those many summer ago
while mother waited on you hand and foot,
and my cheeks burned hot with secret shame
and someone oh someone
forgot to rescue me . . .

It’s almost finished now
and worth every ache of writer’s cramp
to get it all down once and for all.

Next comes the fun part,
the magical rub of the eraser

or the click of the delete button:

Oh unholy one,
I’m writing you out of my soul
I’m writing you out
I’m writing you
I’m writing….

(my pencil is mightier than your sword)