Fall 2008 Museletter

Museletter Poetry Page

Parenting
Editor: Wendy Vardaman

COMING OF AGE

On his twenty-first birthday
my son calls from a rainforest hut
at Cape Tribulation, Queensland
through radio waves, no lines,
to tell me how he watched
the poisonous snake’s display
after his walking pole missed it by inches,
fished with his bare hands in crocodile waters,
swam with sharks at the Great Barrier Reef.

Soon he’ll leave his hosts in Cairns
to study at Mission Beach
a flightless bird named Cassowary,
blue-necked and wise-looking in books,
more like birds in dreams or paintings,
but their kicks have proven fatal.

And having taken my breath away,
he announces that he will learn next week
to scuba dive off Orpheus Island.

The names of unknown places tease me.
Does he see the reef of history
strewn with displaced dreamers?

His parting shot is Mom, you have to see
this place: it’s time for you to travel.

—Estella Lauter, Fish Creek

THE RUBES HIT OAKLAND, 1956

“She’s wearing a Max,” my four-year-old girl told me.
“A what?” “A Max. On her face. It scares me.
I wish she’d take it off.”
I was confused. “Where is she?” I asked.
House by house, we walked down the street until we found it.
A house with a little old Chinese lady in the yard.
“Oh, a mask!” I said. “Honey, she’s nothing to be afraid of.
It’s not a mask like for Halloween. That’s her face.
She’s just a different race from us. That’s her skin.
It doesn’t come off. If you fall down and skin your knee,
it grows back, just the same look and color.
It comes from the inside and never changes.”
There was a thoughtful pause while she considered.
“Can’t she just take it off a little?” she asked..

—Fran Rall, Madison

WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE

They live in a forty-foot mobile
with blinds drawn so that
no one will know anything.
He works in the stench
of the leather factory south of Sioux City,
a recovering alcoholic, waiting for the day
he can drive again.
She’s not recovering, though if she knows
you’re coming, she’ll sober up
and talk about old times.

Two large flat-faced tvs
dominate the living room
and two despondent over-stuffed chairs
face the screens.The kitchen table is stacked
with boxes, unrelated to food,
though she says she cooks.

When he speaks to her he orders her
to take out the trash.
Showing some pride, she doesn’t
respond at the time,
but eventually does as she is told.

Her appearance is hollow-cheeked;
the hood of her grey sweat-shirt,
covers the burn scar above her left ear.
As a child her face was full of smiles;
her dark eyes danced to the tune of her stories.
Sunshine followed her down the sidewalk.

—Lincoln Hartford, New Lisbon

FIFTEEN

upon each cheek
a red flush of passion
that tempts
the boy-man
to reach
for the fruit
under her sweater

my kitchen poem
will not assemble
just pretends to dance
in the deep sighs
that are my daughter
and her boyfriend
on the living room couch

kissing

in a patch of sunlight
on a Saturday afternoon.

—Susan Huebner, Mukwonago

FIRST BLOOD
(May 7, 2002)

“Your daughter’s started her period!”
“What should I do?”
“Nothing, you’re the dad.
Dads aren’t supposed to know.”

10 ½ years is too soon.
She’ll figure it all out.
Get it on with tampons, maxi pads, and Advil.
Doesn’t seem fair. Showing up so early
when she still wants to be a boy.
Runs faster than any boy.

Of course I don’t know about it.
Not invited into the Women Only Blood Club.
Staying clueless—the elegantly simpler gender.
My mind works on an impromptu ol’ dad-soft-shoe
             circle of women, full moon,
             the ebb and the flow,
             women’s secrets, sisterhood,
             and the Goddess Girl’s Club,
but it’s not working. Nothing sacred about any of this for me.

When I get home I hug her
“let's go for a coke and a hamburger”
… as if nothing’s happened.
Just your same old dad. The old safe shoe.
Feeling sad for she who must now bleed in secret, alone.

—F.J. Bergmann, Poynette
previously appeared in Southern Poetry Review

LISTEN, MOTHER

I am first of all not disturbed
rather I do what is right
and you don’t understand

mom you kept me from you
in ways I couldn’t argue
all I wanted then was to hold you

so tight and ride over
those angry waves or sink
with our arms around each other

and see where that would go
sometimes I almost remember so much
I couldn’t do anything about

but now I have his strong arms
around me I don’t need your
woman’s touch you wouldn’t give

what I must do now is wait
he’s left his wife and all that
just a year and the law lets me go

oh why do you keep saying “no way”
no way I’ll take my meds
you bet your ass there’s more I’ll do.

—R. Virgil Ellis, Cambridge

FISHER-PRICE

A man slumps in a plastic chair
at a plastic table in a blue-and-
pink kitchen. He is staring at a
plastic place mat. His wife and
baby have driven off in the shiny
red convertible. The double doors
suddenly fly open. God’s face fills
the doorway. He is two years old,
and he knows everything.

—John Lehman, Cambridge

STAY IN THE KITCHEN

That’s where the action is
so said the mother
of teens
and the words turned me
into a middle-aged
Cinderella

Well past midnight
I baked cookies
filled the crock pot
cleaned the refrigerator
scrubbed pots
clipped coupons
polished silver

Staying close to the hearth
I tended the fire
Listened to my children

After they were asleep
I sifted the ashes.

—Kathleen Phillips, Waukesha
previously published in Free Verse

Theme for Fall issue:
“What were you wearing?”
See below for more specific submission information.

Deadline:
Friday, November 7, 2008