Red Keds - A 100 Word Story

Sabrina put on her new red Keds. Mom didn’t want her to wear them out on the ranch. The other kids were wearing their old, stained and worn tennies. But Sabrina knew a crisp winter day with a perfect blue sky was the kind of day to break in her new shoes. Arguing with her mom made her lag behind as  her sister Sylvia and their friends Anne and Kate ran down to the tank. Finally, Mom let her go. “Don’t blame me if you ruin ‘em down in the mud!” she shouted as Sabrina chased after the other girls.

Regarding Fruit

Three days and sixty-four miles from now, the pomegranate
blossom I picked from the branch and nested today in the vent
above my dash will be shades darker nearly garnet, wilted
in the dry AC air and windshield sun. The petals, cradled
in my palm as I enter your house, will flutter, crisp as garlic
skin to the floor, as I carry them to the trash can.

You know Persephone ate six, only six. Can
you imagine, six months in hell for eating a bit of pomegranate?
I know meanings cluster around the myth like the cloves of garlic
around their stem. Some professor would say that no event
is free from ancient assignations, from our first cradled
coo to our last utterance, that every triumph, every love must wilt,

scorched by collective memory. I want to pluck the wilted
brutal fruit of myth off the vine, crush it with the cant
of differance, create a new possibility for the way you cradle
me in your arms. Since you’ve never had one, I’ll bring a pomegranate,
split it open and feed you each excavated seed, re-invent
the role, wash your sheets, fix you tuna salad with marjoram and garlic.

I’d rather count out your pills, zinc, C and garlic
even consider magic and Crowley’s maxim, “Do what thou wilt”
than sit in class listening to another academe vent
his middle-aged frustrations in a lecture, cannily
designed to fool even himself, about P’s pomegranate
or the cost of civilization which Athena cradled

in her bargain with the Euminides; that a cradle
bears anything other than the dusty, garlic
skinned flower of death. The juice of pomegranates
is made to make grenadine. I never will
know how to stomach the over-sweet stuff. I can
grow scarlet hibiscus in pots and listen to you vent

about the job you haven’t got, though not prevent
predictable squabbles over money. We may cradle
our roles within our culture’s embrace, but if I can,
I’ll kiss you post-gym and sweaty, taste your garlic
breath. Emerging is hot work and we might wilt
like the scarlet blossom I’m bringing, forbearing pomegranates.

In any event, there is no telling what offspring, garlic-skinned,
tender, and bitter is cradled, in danger of wilting
in our canny myth-making. For now I bear the flower, not the fruit of the pomegranate.

Written during college, a professor thought this was too precious. I've always rather liked most of it. Looking at it again to see what works and what doesn't. Thanks for comments. Ro

Daydream

I wish I could hold one of your broad, flat feet
in my hands, gently rub the dry calloused skin,
press in your sole and pull on your short toes,
listen to them crackle. Then the other.

Downpour

From the time I learned about horoscopes and elements
I was enchanted. Every year I learned more about symbols,
just enough to keep me hoping I was special. A fire sign.


It’s raining again. The St. Augustine sprouts up, exuberantly
green. Puddles pool around the front door, fill the cracked
driveway, the backyard cedes to a pond.


Quiet, listening to the rain, hovering above melancholy,
I can almost chuckle at the idea that I’m a fire sign,
that the year I was born, the planets whirling over me
made me passionate or driven, that some pattern of stars
...


I would rather be a fire sign. I could combat doubt,
force someone to believe in me, make something
happen.


But I love water. Falling from the sky, pooling up
in the streets, slowing traffic. I love diving in,
whelmed by the cool comfort of pressure,
the oxygen bubble that is me, bounced up
to gasp and breathe.


I want to make something of that. I need certainty.
When I was baptized and the priest poured water
over my eager forehead, was some magic made?
I’ve loved church. There is water and fire.


Men walk on surfaces which cannot sustain me.
Are purged by fire and speak what I’ll never
understand. Wine gathers on my tongue,
in my cheeks, and rinses away dry bread crumbs.


And oh. How I cry. Enough for all to know water
is what moves in me. If you believe in such things.


Maybe I am just sad.


Note: This is new. Perhaps too much I. Let me know. thanks, RO

Family

In southeast Texas we run our AC's nearly all year round
just to keep the air moving.
If it's too cold, then the heater's going
keeping our houses toastywarm,
maybe too toasty if the sun comes out.
I like to open the window then, let in some cool air,
if it's not too cold, but still a bit too stiff to be called temperate.
Just as I open the kitchen window, the breeze comes in
hinting of spring. Like sipping a glass of cold water,
my eyes open a bit, a smile sneaks from my lips.

I get so used to this small world inside I forget
sunlight like lemons, the smell of fresh grass and rotting things,
the brightness that defies explanations. Every day is not edenic,
but when I open that window and Eve smiles, I remember about being.

It happens when I am with you all,
when no one is noticing much or trying too hard. A window opens
and we all laugh together and it's like the sun, bright in late winter,
a breeze soft and cool in early spring, a moment for a smile, unexpected.

A little something written for my family.

Pulling Weeds

I turn to you, Mother, as if I never knew you,

as if you never caressed my hair when I lay in your bed,
coughing, sweating out my fevers on your sheets,
as if you never taught me to scramble eggs,

to separate colors from whites before laundering,
scour grease-crusted pans or pull primroses and other weeds

from rose beds,
to change first safety-pinned cloth diapers,

then plastic disposables on your youngest daughter,

as if I never became, under your hands, the perfect little mother.

To sing of mothers, I must forget how I squeezed next to you on the piano bench,
how I looked for your signal when you stood before the music stand 

so I'd know when to breathe, when to sing, when to be silent,
how we crowded before the organ,

how I searched for your nod to turn the page 

trying to anticipate you, 

needing to follow the score, 

to know how your hands intercepted the notes so I wouldn't fall behind

and disappoint you.

When I was thirteen I saw you at the table reading,
books spread around you, some open, some closed.
You were frowning as you concentrated.
I must remember that moment.

Myths fail you, Mother. I don't sing. I kneel beside you:

yanking at weeds, listening in the quiet

between Speck's barks to you breathe,

hum, curse the weeds, seeing that you

are grateful for my hands,
as earth-stained and strong as yours,
the way I can pull up the invading roots that even you miss.

 

I wrote this poem as an ode to fulfill an assignment for Forms class in college. It was not quite an ode then and I've since revised it to be the poem it wanted to be, not the ode I tried to make it. I think. Any comments are appreciated. Any punctuation suggestions are appreciated.