The Neighborhood of Make-Believe—After Thomas Lux— A Special Prompt
After reading the poem "The Neighborhood of Make Believe" by Tom Lux, we decided to use that title as a prompt, asking poets to write their own poem using it as the title. So here they are. We received far more poems than we were able to use, but we think these serve best the idea we had in mind.
After reading the poem "The Neighborhood of Make Believe" by Tom Lux, we decided to use that title as a prompt, asking poets to write their own poem using it as the title. So here they are. We received far more poems than we were able to use, but we think these serve best the idea we had in mind.
Wendy Drexler. Holly Iglesias. Fasasi Abdulrosheed Oladipupo. David B. Prather. Bruce Robinson. Amanda Russell. Alison Stone. Kerry Trautman. Yvonne Zipter.
Cover image by Michael Mackin O'Mara
Fasasi Abdulrosheed Oladipupo Ibadan, Nigeria
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe/Èèwọ̀
A pregnant woman should avoid a bald neonate,
Thus she should not cross an assembly of insects.
Storytelling is a night ritual, in whose mouth the
Kola has turned gum, no child tell them at noon
Only that he becomes a stray dog. Èèwọ̀,
The bird of omen should be spared, for the reason of life
For he who speared vulture spears himself, grass cutters
Are only the knight of the night, lest the village
Be wrapped in evil, for the world not to end
At your side, you must stand the whole day or
Sit on mortar, let the pregnant women see the noon and
Stick to their rooms, lest their wards become defeathered like fowls.
Let the poet keep the miseries of lèkulèja
Lest his night shall become a forest, a race and long nightmares.
# inspired by "a mouth sweeter than salt" by toyin falola.
A pregnant woman should avoid a bald neonate,
Thus she should not cross an assembly of insects.
Storytelling is a night ritual, in whose mouth the
Kola has turned gum, no child tell them at noon
Only that he becomes a stray dog. Èèwọ̀,
The bird of omen should be spared, for the reason of life
For he who speared vulture spears himself, grass cutters
Are only the knight of the night, lest the village
Be wrapped in evil, for the world not to end
At your side, you must stand the whole day or
Sit on mortar, let the pregnant women see the noon and
Stick to their rooms, lest their wards become defeathered like fowls.
Let the poet keep the miseries of lèkulèja
Lest his night shall become a forest, a race and long nightmares.
# inspired by "a mouth sweeter than salt" by toyin falola.
Fasasi Abdulrosheed Oladipupo is a Nigerian poet & a Veterinary Medical Student, whose first love is art making. He is an avid reader, who sees poetry in everything, with great interest in storytelling. His work has been appeared, or is forthcoming from: Watershed Journal, Iman Collectives, South Florida Poetry Journal, Olongo Africa, Roanoke, Kissing Dynamite, The Night Heron Barks Review, Santa Ana River Review, Stand Magazine, Louisiana Literature, Obsidian, Collateral, Welter Journal, LEVITATE and elsewhere.
Wendy Drexler
Love is a Wishbone Caught in My Throat
In our neighborhood of make believe,
his keys and cell phone play
hide-and-seek at night
and are always out
of earshot when he calls for them each morning.
In our neighborhood, it’s Friday
all week except when
Saturday pretends to be Sunday.
Monday plays on the slide.
Tuesday rides the swings.
Wednesday has an alibi.
In our neighborhood at dawn, I ask
the daisies how to be brave
but they don’t answer.
So I ask them how they’ve learned to turn
east each morning, face the sun,
follow it faithfully until dusk.
They tell me this is our work,
come dark water, come frost,
when we will hold only the songs
the wind makes in the trees beside the field
when the birds are singing loudly.
In our neighborhood at night,
I ask dung beetles how they roll their balls
into burrows, in such straight lines,
guided only by light from the Milky Way
and snapshots of the stars
they’ve stored in their brains.
In our neighborhood,
Thursday hides under a hill.
Friday is out of milk.
Saturday scrambles under piles of paper.
Sunday runs the clothes through
the washing machine twice for good luck.
In our neighborhood of make believe,
his keys and cell phone play
hide-and-seek at night
and are always out
of earshot when he calls for them each morning.
In our neighborhood, it’s Friday
all week except when
Saturday pretends to be Sunday.
Monday plays on the slide.
Tuesday rides the swings.
Wednesday has an alibi.
In our neighborhood at dawn, I ask
the daisies how to be brave
but they don’t answer.
So I ask them how they’ve learned to turn
east each morning, face the sun,
follow it faithfully until dusk.
They tell me this is our work,
come dark water, come frost,
when we will hold only the songs
the wind makes in the trees beside the field
when the birds are singing loudly.
In our neighborhood at night,
I ask dung beetles how they roll their balls
into burrows, in such straight lines,
guided only by light from the Milky Way
and snapshots of the stars
they’ve stored in their brains.
In our neighborhood,
Thursday hides under a hill.
Friday is out of milk.
Saturday scrambles under piles of paper.
Sunday runs the clothes through
the washing machine twice for good luck.
Wendy Drexler’s third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, South Florida Poetry Review, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in numerous anthologies. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.
Holly Iglesias Miami, FL
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
It is elsewhere, elsewhere…
(Thomas Lux)
It is elsewhere, elsewhere…
(Thomas Lux)
|
In the neighborhood of make-believe, neighbors feign good cheer, wear britches that are too small, gaze at their phones. In the neighborhood of make-believe, workers wear rubber aprons, pretend to stock shelves and sweep floors and sanitize the handles of metal carts. And only there, in the neighborhood of make-believe, do children sing songs in a private language and wrap dolls in oily rags before laying them on beds of straw, sure that a miracle is imminent, immanent.
|
Holly Iglesias believed as a kid that she'd been sent on a mission to work hard and spread good cheer. She returned the neighbors’ empty bottles to the store and brought the deposits back; straightened rows of cans at a nearby grocery store and organized the comic-book racks at drugstores; took toddlers for a walk around the block and told them the names of trees; delivered bags of pretzels to the mailman walking his route. Surely her mother breathed a sigh of relief when she was old enough to join the Girl Scouts.
David B. Prather Parkersburg, WV
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
A bird sings in the rain
in the middle of the night,
which ancestors tell us is a sign
of something more mysterious.
Something more mysterious
happens in our neighbor’s homes,
makes us whisper about the young
man who killed himself,
or the couple screaming at
each other in the darkest hours.
In the darkest hours, there
should be owl and nightjar,
mockingbird and killdeer
calling out in our dreams.
In our dreams, wind hushes
through trees, waves shush
against shore, and someone stays
up all night with someone else.
Someone else is rushed away
with sirens and lights, people
at their windows stoking
the worst fears. The worst
fears lie in wait for me
to turn off the light, so they can
stretch out through the house,
fill every shadow. Every shadow
has a source, a body it mimics,
a body that throws it away,
a sense of self cast upon the earth.
Cast upon the earth, every atom
of water moves toward the lowest
elevation, unless it is trapped.
Unless it is trapped, air moves
as though it has a purpose, and
a bird sings in the rain.
A bird sings in the rain
in the middle of the night,
which ancestors tell us is a sign
of something more mysterious.
Something more mysterious
happens in our neighbor’s homes,
makes us whisper about the young
man who killed himself,
or the couple screaming at
each other in the darkest hours.
In the darkest hours, there
should be owl and nightjar,
mockingbird and killdeer
calling out in our dreams.
In our dreams, wind hushes
through trees, waves shush
against shore, and someone stays
up all night with someone else.
Someone else is rushed away
with sirens and lights, people
at their windows stoking
the worst fears. The worst
fears lie in wait for me
to turn off the light, so they can
stretch out through the house,
fill every shadow. Every shadow
has a source, a body it mimics,
a body that throws it away,
a sense of self cast upon the earth.
Cast upon the earth, every atom
of water moves toward the lowest
elevation, unless it is trapped.
Unless it is trapped, air moves
as though it has a purpose, and
a bird sings in the rain.
David B. Prather received his MFA from Warren Wilson College. His first collection, We Were Birds, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2019. His poetry has appeared in many journals, including Colorado Review, Seneca Review, Prairie Schooner, and others. He studied acting at the National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York, and he received his MFA from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. He served as poetry editor for Confluence Literary Journal and hosted the Blennerhassett Reading Series.
Bruce Robinson
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
Driving rain, driving cross-country
through miles of cross country, nearly
beside ourselves, the way a door
sidles up to house, stanchion against
the rutting trees. Look at these nights
we drive past, glancing, dubious, surprised
a hearth should have heat. Is nothing less
intricate than these expectant trees,
wood leaves, night sky veering from dark to light
to dark, the neon hiss of bear
piss on snow, of asterisk on sky?
Let’s weigh our haste upon that mist.
Nearly there, crossing routes that limit us
in ways we cannot fathom; we’ll speed,
sped apart, we're two cars
in a rush-lit Amtrak
parking lot that everyone else
has long since left;
We two halves
have the line to ourselves, turn our faces
from reflexive exits cautiously,
(tonight we’re painting by the numbers)
between those lines that threaten
tacit boundaries, make do as homes.
Driving rain, driving cross-country
through miles of cross country, nearly
beside ourselves, the way a door
sidles up to house, stanchion against
the rutting trees. Look at these nights
we drive past, glancing, dubious, surprised
a hearth should have heat. Is nothing less
intricate than these expectant trees,
wood leaves, night sky veering from dark to light
to dark, the neon hiss of bear
piss on snow, of asterisk on sky?
Let’s weigh our haste upon that mist.
Nearly there, crossing routes that limit us
in ways we cannot fathom; we’ll speed,
sped apart, we're two cars
in a rush-lit Amtrak
parking lot that everyone else
has long since left;
We two halves
have the line to ourselves, turn our faces
from reflexive exits cautiously,
(tonight we’re painting by the numbers)
between those lines that threaten
tacit boundaries, make do as homes.
Bruce Robinson's poetry and fiction appears or is forthcoming in Pangyrus, Spoon River, Maintenant, Fiction, Rattle, Xavier Review, and Off the Coast. His "One Year, One of These Years" is in SoFloPoJo 9, May 2018, when he still was thinking "South Florida Poetry Journal." His water and school tax bills are also due September 30. Something else as well, I hope I can find it in the next 10 days.
Amanda Russell
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
1.
I imagine it’s something like trying to find Sesame Street.
Have you been there? he asked.
Our lips zipped.
We could not break
his belief. He was a grown man,
feeding goats at a rescue center,
a gentle joy-hearted man,
wearing tube socks
with Grover on them.
You live in New York? he asked again.
You should go! I want to go.
2.
In the neighborhood of make-believe,
dark alleys are replaced by working streetlights--
the whole world is alive
and we know it--
owls find out whoo
and then ask why, when, and how--
we all walk in the valley of death
and fear no evil.
3.
Pandora never opens her box
Fictions ferment into truths
Eden’s gate regenerates
Sky Woman keeps dancing
There is no need of heaven
Nothing has ever been lost
Nothing has ever been lost
1.
I imagine it’s something like trying to find Sesame Street.
Have you been there? he asked.
Our lips zipped.
We could not break
his belief. He was a grown man,
feeding goats at a rescue center,
a gentle joy-hearted man,
wearing tube socks
with Grover on them.
You live in New York? he asked again.
You should go! I want to go.
2.
In the neighborhood of make-believe,
dark alleys are replaced by working streetlights--
the whole world is alive
and we know it--
owls find out whoo
and then ask why, when, and how--
we all walk in the valley of death
and fear no evil.
3.
Pandora never opens her box
Fictions ferment into truths
Eden’s gate regenerates
Sky Woman keeps dancing
There is no need of heaven
Nothing has ever been lost
Nothing has ever been lost
Amanda Russell is a stay-at-home mom living with her husband, two children and a dog in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her debut chapbook, Barren Years, was published by Finishing Line Press (2019). She has work forthcoming in EcoTheo Review. Her poems recently appeared in magazines such as Social Unity, Chronogram, and The Lincoln Underground as well as the anthology Mightier: poets for social justice. For links to articles, interviews and more, please visit https://poetrussell.wordpress.com/
Alison Stone Nyack, NY
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
Our streets had the names of old-fashioned girls –
Nancy, Claudette, Agnes. Each house the same.
Fathers taught their sons to mow the small lawns.
Girls galloped on brooms, fed dolls plastic milk.
Mrs. Polansky passed out on our couch.
My brother’s friend fell off his bike and died.
Mom cried, then never said his name again.
Is Bishop right that someone loves us all?
We couldn’t touch ourselves. Some uncles did.
I grew rude with longing to be elsewhere.
When full, you had to ask to be excused.
No TV at dinner except playoffs.
Football time lied – two minutes dragged for twelve.
I starved myself to safety, transcendence.
***
I starved myself to safety, transcendence,
skin pale as the angels I imagined.
Did angels start as humans and then die?
Ann Stevens had a problem with her lungs.
She had been weak but still went to Brownies.
Then an ambulance parked in her driveway
and her parents and sister moved away.
My parents acted like she went with them.
One evening on TV—A Case of Rape.
The ad blared, The first time she told no one.
The raped woman used to star in Bewitched.
People kept saying that it was her fault.
She couldn’t twitch her nose and make things change.
Each birthday I wished that magic was real.
***
Each birthday I wished that magic was real.
Otherwise, making wishes was a lie.
Tarot cards, Ouija board, ESP book,
trying to move a pencil with my will.
No luck. I was stuck in the mundane world,
with friends who left. With arguments and chores.
My brother got outside, I got kitchen.
Any fool could see it was a bum deal.
Were kitchens the reason women were so mad?
Outside had breezes and the neighbors’ cats.
Meals had to be planned, cooked, served, then cleaned up.
Mom was always the last one to sit down.
No one waited for her to start eating.
The dog left when anger started to spill.
***
The dog left when anger started to spill.
I knew what night it was by the TV.
We watched the detective shows that Dad liked –
Kojak’s bald head shiny as Farrah’s teeth.
Being shot at didn’t mean you would die.
Some episodes men slapped their girlfriends,
then everything was ok and they kissed.
That was dating. Marriage was the dishes.
We wore braids with plastic bows, shorts under
our dresses in case someone pulled them up.
There were five girls on my street so someone
always had to be the person left out.
For favors, we’d say, I’ll be your best friend.
We were lying, of course. Everyone knew.
***
We were lying, of course. Everyone knew
there were secrets under the tablecloths,
the makeup. In the trunk of the new car.
I envied Sue her family’s honest mess.
Her parents were the only divorced ones.
None of the other mothers had to work
for money and not join the PTA.
Sue was cute and strong so no one teased her.
Ropes hung from the gym ceiling like huge worms.
Even if I burned my hands, I only
got a couple inches up, then dropped.
It would have been nice to enter the sky.
Sue was the only girl to reach the top.
The rest of us watched—earthbound, envious.
***
The rest of us watched – earthbound, envious
while astronauts got to visit the moon.
We saw the moon on nights we stayed up late.
We could see stars, too. Or were they airplanes?
I couldn’t figure out what to wish on.
That was even before we learned some stars
are dead, and also that our bodies are
made from them. Do siblings get the same stars?
They didn’t get the same anything else.
Dad hated Mom’s friend Harriet because
she was a Women’s Libber, with short hair,
a loud voice, and a laugh that filled the room.
She talked about changing things, which scared me.
Whenever my life changed, something was lost.
***
Whenever my life changed, something was lost.
Each time a friend moved, I watched more TV.
Nixon declared that he wasn’t a crook.
I had liked him because he did something
with pandas that made the news anchors smile.
The bears meant China wasn’t mad at us.
A Cuban family moved onto our street.
They weren’t Communist, so it was ok.
Lisa and I were obsessed with horses,
play ones we had and the real ones waiting.
Then Lisa’s father’s shoe business “took off”
and she moved to a big house with a barn.
I still saddled and cantered my plastics,
but sadness leaked out from beneath the game.
***
Sadness leaked out from beneath the games played
on dry fields or boards, in parents’ bedrooms.
Sometimes Mom and Dad were mad and didn’t
speak to one another. “Tell your father
dinner’s ready.” “Ask Mom to pass the salt.”
Then they went back to talking but the air
was charged. I got a lot of stomachaches.
Being sick meant you could nap on the couch,
watch TV all day and eat popsicles.
When I had a fever I’d watch, then doze,
half-seen plots getting mixed up with my dreams.
If I needed something, I rang a bell.
Mom was great unless I stayed sick too long.
Then she got scared and snapped, Stop coughing.
I had to pretend that I was OK.
***
I had to pretend that I was OK,
not talk about the boys who followed me
home and knocked the books from my hands. They smirked
and made noises about my new body.
Jill had breasts, too, and kept a thick vest in
her desk. We took turns wearing it to hide.
Then Jill dumped me for Liz Barrista,
who looked like a boy and wore ugly shoes.
What you wore didn’t matter at all, then
suddenly it did. Izod shirts and boys’
jeans or corduroys from expensive stores,
not bargain Levis with their tags cut out.
The rules for what was OK kept changing.
It was important not to make mistakes.
***
It was important not to make mistakes,
or else you’d be picked last for teams in gym
and no one would let you sit down at lunch.
You couldn’t be fat or brainy, or poor,
or different, unless you were popular
like Ellen. Her freckles blurred together
like orange ink. Stuttering, stooped-over
Jane had freckles, too, but hers were ugly.
Dad said that someone’s looks shouldn’t matter,
but he talked about cute blondes and pointed
them out to my brother. When one walked by,
my mother’s lips got thinner and she looked
like she might say something but then didn’t.
There was always something not being said.
***
There was always something not being said,
someone’s throat closed tight around the hidden
things that we were not supposed to notice.
If you did notice, you had to shut up.
That was the most important rule. Once I
started to tell to see what would happen.
Mom laughed shrilly and Dad changed the subject
to drugged-out boys with long hair burning flags.
I couldn’t know what Dad’s job was, just that
he had a high security clearance
and flew to cities with exotic names.
Mom got nervous when generals came for
dinner. I’d help her scoop out melon balls,
fold napkins, and put out the fancy plates.
***
Cloth napkins and fancy plates didn’t help
when conversations started to boil.
Mom and Dad told us racism’s wrong but
laughed when Uncle Richard told Polack jokes.
There was one Chinese kid in my class, Steve
Chang. No Black kids till a program bused some
in. Then the program ended and they left.
A few of us were Jewish, but we sang
Christmas songs, so it wasn’t a big deal.
We pledged One nation, indivisible
until the school board added under God,
which made my parents mad. They liked God but
some things needed to be kept separate.
***
Some things needed to be kept separate,
like boys’ and girls’ sports teams, like Church and State.
When they started a minute of silence
“for prayer or meditation,” parents
who thought God belonged in church told their kids
to get up and spend the time sharpening
pencils. I was supposed to be one of
the pencil kids, but I liked the quiet.
When it was quiet I could look around
and watch kids tap fingers or eat their hair.
The sharpener got full. Did anyone
know what prayers we were supposed to say?
The teachers didn’t care. What mattered was
appearances, not what our bodies knew.
***
Appearances, not what my body knew,
controlled how I acted. Everyone was
controlled by something. I could see the strain
in my parents’ eyes, hear the fear behind
the cool girls’ laughter. No one wanted to
not get invited or to be the one
always made It. The boys could sometimes be
honest, hit other boys and make them bleed.
Most families had two children. Some had three.
When Ann died, her parents only had one.
Each house had the same-sized yard, with tulips
and a swing set. You could choose the colors.
Children shot baskets in driveways or played
on streets with the names of old-fashioned girls.
***
Where streets had the names of old-fashioned girls,
I starved myself to safety, transcendence,
each birthday wishing that magic was real.
The dog left when anger started to spill.
We were often lying. Everyone knew.
Rockets launched as we watched – earthbound, envious.
Whenever my life changed, something was lost,
and sadness lurked beneath the games we played.
I had to pretend that I was OK.
It was important not to make mistakes,
or to let slip the thing not being said
near the folded napkins and fancy plates.
Some things needed to be kept separate --
appearances from what our bodies knew.
Our streets had the names of old-fashioned girls –
Nancy, Claudette, Agnes. Each house the same.
Fathers taught their sons to mow the small lawns.
Girls galloped on brooms, fed dolls plastic milk.
Mrs. Polansky passed out on our couch.
My brother’s friend fell off his bike and died.
Mom cried, then never said his name again.
Is Bishop right that someone loves us all?
We couldn’t touch ourselves. Some uncles did.
I grew rude with longing to be elsewhere.
When full, you had to ask to be excused.
No TV at dinner except playoffs.
Football time lied – two minutes dragged for twelve.
I starved myself to safety, transcendence.
***
I starved myself to safety, transcendence,
skin pale as the angels I imagined.
Did angels start as humans and then die?
Ann Stevens had a problem with her lungs.
She had been weak but still went to Brownies.
Then an ambulance parked in her driveway
and her parents and sister moved away.
My parents acted like she went with them.
One evening on TV—A Case of Rape.
The ad blared, The first time she told no one.
The raped woman used to star in Bewitched.
People kept saying that it was her fault.
She couldn’t twitch her nose and make things change.
Each birthday I wished that magic was real.
***
Each birthday I wished that magic was real.
Otherwise, making wishes was a lie.
Tarot cards, Ouija board, ESP book,
trying to move a pencil with my will.
No luck. I was stuck in the mundane world,
with friends who left. With arguments and chores.
My brother got outside, I got kitchen.
Any fool could see it was a bum deal.
Were kitchens the reason women were so mad?
Outside had breezes and the neighbors’ cats.
Meals had to be planned, cooked, served, then cleaned up.
Mom was always the last one to sit down.
No one waited for her to start eating.
The dog left when anger started to spill.
***
The dog left when anger started to spill.
I knew what night it was by the TV.
We watched the detective shows that Dad liked –
Kojak’s bald head shiny as Farrah’s teeth.
Being shot at didn’t mean you would die.
Some episodes men slapped their girlfriends,
then everything was ok and they kissed.
That was dating. Marriage was the dishes.
We wore braids with plastic bows, shorts under
our dresses in case someone pulled them up.
There were five girls on my street so someone
always had to be the person left out.
For favors, we’d say, I’ll be your best friend.
We were lying, of course. Everyone knew.
***
We were lying, of course. Everyone knew
there were secrets under the tablecloths,
the makeup. In the trunk of the new car.
I envied Sue her family’s honest mess.
Her parents were the only divorced ones.
None of the other mothers had to work
for money and not join the PTA.
Sue was cute and strong so no one teased her.
Ropes hung from the gym ceiling like huge worms.
Even if I burned my hands, I only
got a couple inches up, then dropped.
It would have been nice to enter the sky.
Sue was the only girl to reach the top.
The rest of us watched—earthbound, envious.
***
The rest of us watched – earthbound, envious
while astronauts got to visit the moon.
We saw the moon on nights we stayed up late.
We could see stars, too. Or were they airplanes?
I couldn’t figure out what to wish on.
That was even before we learned some stars
are dead, and also that our bodies are
made from them. Do siblings get the same stars?
They didn’t get the same anything else.
Dad hated Mom’s friend Harriet because
she was a Women’s Libber, with short hair,
a loud voice, and a laugh that filled the room.
She talked about changing things, which scared me.
Whenever my life changed, something was lost.
***
Whenever my life changed, something was lost.
Each time a friend moved, I watched more TV.
Nixon declared that he wasn’t a crook.
I had liked him because he did something
with pandas that made the news anchors smile.
The bears meant China wasn’t mad at us.
A Cuban family moved onto our street.
They weren’t Communist, so it was ok.
Lisa and I were obsessed with horses,
play ones we had and the real ones waiting.
Then Lisa’s father’s shoe business “took off”
and she moved to a big house with a barn.
I still saddled and cantered my plastics,
but sadness leaked out from beneath the game.
***
Sadness leaked out from beneath the games played
on dry fields or boards, in parents’ bedrooms.
Sometimes Mom and Dad were mad and didn’t
speak to one another. “Tell your father
dinner’s ready.” “Ask Mom to pass the salt.”
Then they went back to talking but the air
was charged. I got a lot of stomachaches.
Being sick meant you could nap on the couch,
watch TV all day and eat popsicles.
When I had a fever I’d watch, then doze,
half-seen plots getting mixed up with my dreams.
If I needed something, I rang a bell.
Mom was great unless I stayed sick too long.
Then she got scared and snapped, Stop coughing.
I had to pretend that I was OK.
***
I had to pretend that I was OK,
not talk about the boys who followed me
home and knocked the books from my hands. They smirked
and made noises about my new body.
Jill had breasts, too, and kept a thick vest in
her desk. We took turns wearing it to hide.
Then Jill dumped me for Liz Barrista,
who looked like a boy and wore ugly shoes.
What you wore didn’t matter at all, then
suddenly it did. Izod shirts and boys’
jeans or corduroys from expensive stores,
not bargain Levis with their tags cut out.
The rules for what was OK kept changing.
It was important not to make mistakes.
***
It was important not to make mistakes,
or else you’d be picked last for teams in gym
and no one would let you sit down at lunch.
You couldn’t be fat or brainy, or poor,
or different, unless you were popular
like Ellen. Her freckles blurred together
like orange ink. Stuttering, stooped-over
Jane had freckles, too, but hers were ugly.
Dad said that someone’s looks shouldn’t matter,
but he talked about cute blondes and pointed
them out to my brother. When one walked by,
my mother’s lips got thinner and she looked
like she might say something but then didn’t.
There was always something not being said.
***
There was always something not being said,
someone’s throat closed tight around the hidden
things that we were not supposed to notice.
If you did notice, you had to shut up.
That was the most important rule. Once I
started to tell to see what would happen.
Mom laughed shrilly and Dad changed the subject
to drugged-out boys with long hair burning flags.
I couldn’t know what Dad’s job was, just that
he had a high security clearance
and flew to cities with exotic names.
Mom got nervous when generals came for
dinner. I’d help her scoop out melon balls,
fold napkins, and put out the fancy plates.
***
Cloth napkins and fancy plates didn’t help
when conversations started to boil.
Mom and Dad told us racism’s wrong but
laughed when Uncle Richard told Polack jokes.
There was one Chinese kid in my class, Steve
Chang. No Black kids till a program bused some
in. Then the program ended and they left.
A few of us were Jewish, but we sang
Christmas songs, so it wasn’t a big deal.
We pledged One nation, indivisible
until the school board added under God,
which made my parents mad. They liked God but
some things needed to be kept separate.
***
Some things needed to be kept separate,
like boys’ and girls’ sports teams, like Church and State.
When they started a minute of silence
“for prayer or meditation,” parents
who thought God belonged in church told their kids
to get up and spend the time sharpening
pencils. I was supposed to be one of
the pencil kids, but I liked the quiet.
When it was quiet I could look around
and watch kids tap fingers or eat their hair.
The sharpener got full. Did anyone
know what prayers we were supposed to say?
The teachers didn’t care. What mattered was
appearances, not what our bodies knew.
***
Appearances, not what my body knew,
controlled how I acted. Everyone was
controlled by something. I could see the strain
in my parents’ eyes, hear the fear behind
the cool girls’ laughter. No one wanted to
not get invited or to be the one
always made It. The boys could sometimes be
honest, hit other boys and make them bleed.
Most families had two children. Some had three.
When Ann died, her parents only had one.
Each house had the same-sized yard, with tulips
and a swing set. You could choose the colors.
Children shot baskets in driveways or played
on streets with the names of old-fashioned girls.
***
Where streets had the names of old-fashioned girls,
I starved myself to safety, transcendence,
each birthday wishing that magic was real.
The dog left when anger started to spill.
We were often lying. Everyone knew.
Rockets launched as we watched – earthbound, envious.
Whenever my life changed, something was lost,
and sadness lurked beneath the games we played.
I had to pretend that I was OK.
It was important not to make mistakes,
or to let slip the thing not being said
near the folded napkins and fancy plates.
Some things needed to be kept separate --
appearances from what our bodies knew.
Alison Stone published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot
Kerry Trautman Findlay, OH
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
(after "The Neighborhood of Make-Believe" by Thomas Lux)
One neighbor puts a box of
garden vegetables on her front porch
when she harvests more than she can use.
During the flood, our basement
a dry one, I washed six loads of laundry
for the woman next door.
We post online free jackets or shoes
our kids have outgrown
for those who can use them.
Once, a Labrador appeared in my backyard
and I shut the gate behind it,
called the phone number on its tag.
When the woman next door kept inviting
me to her church every single Sunday
I invented more polite excuses.
My son’s car was hit at least twice
parked at our curb. White paint streaks
on gold quarter-panel, then black.
When our school tax levy failed
with 30% voter turnout I wondered
who all on our street just didn’t bother.
If our house was burning, I suppose
we could cower on a nearby porch
even one with a Trump sign in the yard
even the one with a carved
trespassers will be shot
sign nailed to the magnolia.
(after "The Neighborhood of Make-Believe" by Thomas Lux)
One neighbor puts a box of
garden vegetables on her front porch
when she harvests more than she can use.
During the flood, our basement
a dry one, I washed six loads of laundry
for the woman next door.
We post online free jackets or shoes
our kids have outgrown
for those who can use them.
Once, a Labrador appeared in my backyard
and I shut the gate behind it,
called the phone number on its tag.
When the woman next door kept inviting
me to her church every single Sunday
I invented more polite excuses.
My son’s car was hit at least twice
parked at our curb. White paint streaks
on gold quarter-panel, then black.
When our school tax levy failed
with 30% voter turnout I wondered
who all on our street just didn’t bother.
If our house was burning, I suppose
we could cower on a nearby porch
even one with a Trump sign in the yard
even the one with a carved
trespassers will be shot
sign nailed to the magnolia.
Ohio born and raised, Kerry Trautman is one of the founders of ToledoPoet.com and the “Toledo Poetry Museum” page on Facebook, both of which serve to promote Northwest OH poetry events. She helped organize and participated in several staged readings for Toledo’s Annual “Back to Jack” reader’s theater tribute to the Jack Kerouac. Since 2016, she has served annually as judge or workshop leader for the Northwest region of Ohio’s “Poetry Out Loud” competition. In 2020, her one-act play “Mass” was selected for production as a staged reading through The Toledo Repertoire Theater’s “Toledo Voices” competition. Kerry is a Pushcart nominee, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in dozens of lit journals and anthologies. Her books are, Things That Come in Boxes (Kingcraft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) and To Be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020).
http://nightballetpress.blogspot.com/2017/12/artifacts-by-kerry-trautman.html
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/to-have-hoped-by-kerry-trautman/
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/to-be-nonchalantly-alive?fbclid=IwAR0filnlm8pvh1WH_R86vhmGoq3Er1f6YPnFPsGdB3XbDWISRgrAzPkErbQ
http://nightballetpress.blogspot.com/2017/12/artifacts-by-kerry-trautman.html
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/to-have-hoped-by-kerry-trautman/
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/to-be-nonchalantly-alive?fbclid=IwAR0filnlm8pvh1WH_R86vhmGoq3Er1f6YPnFPsGdB3XbDWISRgrAzPkErbQ
Yvonne Zipter
The Neighborhood of Make-Believe
My grandmother lived on Second Street
in Milwaukee but dwelled somewhere else
in her head. In that space, she is no longer
Myrtice but Peggy. Her best friend, Bernadine,
becomes Bud. Who do they imagine themselves
to be? Characters in a Twain novel, rafting
down a river in search of adventure? Spies
in the house of heterosexuality? Keepers
of confidences too shocking to share? I want
to picture them holding hands, snuggling
with one another, soft and sweet, but my whole
life, my grandmother was a monster, all hoof
and fang, with lava for a heart, and I cannot bear
to humanize her. I’m trying to make believe
she loved me in spite of her spite. I’m trying
to convince myself that even demons can be
redeemed if you rewrite their origin stories.
My grandmother lived on Second Street
in Milwaukee but dwelled somewhere else
in her head. In that space, she is no longer
Myrtice but Peggy. Her best friend, Bernadine,
becomes Bud. Who do they imagine themselves
to be? Characters in a Twain novel, rafting
down a river in search of adventure? Spies
in the house of heterosexuality? Keepers
of confidences too shocking to share? I want
to picture them holding hands, snuggling
with one another, soft and sweet, but my whole
life, my grandmother was a monster, all hoof
and fang, with lava for a heart, and I cannot bear
to humanize her. I’m trying to make believe
she loved me in spite of her spite. I’m trying
to convince myself that even demons can be
redeemed if you rewrite their origin stories.
Yvonne Zipter is the author of the poetry collections Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound The Patience of Metal, and Like Some Bookie God, the nonfiction books Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet, and the Russian historical novel Infraction. She is a retired University of Chicago Press senior manuscript editor.