More Ramblings from the mind of the SNOD

Flash Light Tag

You push me into my coat

and off the porch steps

I hear you shout 

as you leap frog over my head, 

and  start running,

blending  into the trees 

in the backyard.

I pick myself up

and I follow

you

tripping over my shoelaces.

Heart Surgery

In a hospital room,

you hold your girl

as they prick her finger, her arm, her heart.

and you calm her

and kiss her

and give her away to a doctor 

who is going to cut her open.

You smile till she’s gone.

Then you’re gone,

the you that held it together.

And I remember you

and me

in a hospital room long ago.

My eye cut open

by a sister and her bike gear

and I wanted you out of everyone else

to come with me.

At the Hospital, my first visit,

you stand beside me as they thread the needle

preparing to sew me up.

You held my hand 

as they patched the cut under my eye.

And now you sit in a room,

hunched down, 

holding your body to itself,

bravely waiting

for that baby to come back to you.

And I wish I was there to hold your hand.

To Paigie

My Grandfather’s Dress

A black taffeta hung in his closet,

standing amidst baseball hats and suits.

The lace pressed against barn-dirt sweaters

pleading to be worn.

I tried it on and displayed my vintage self.

I was a Gram mannequin.

Hair was slightly different but my face was like her.

He saw her

staring out

and the dress wasn’t old for him.

He saw their first date.

The camera capturing them on the doorstep.

His hand on her back as they danced

She exploded

into his memory.

‘You look nice,’ he said

and finished his ice cream.

-To my Pipop

O

Stopping on our way to the Library 

You begged 

to stop and rake leaves.

The same boy

who was too tired to finish our four hundred feet to the library.

So we raked.

I raked actually

you pushed branches around with a shovel.

We worked for half an hour,

clearing the yard on Second street

till we had enough.

You backed up,

Chariots of Fire played in my head

as you dove head first.

You rose up

throwing leaves  at the sky

forgetting how tired you were.

To our Tulip II

October 16, 2013

Dear Sweetie,

    It’s 11:08 p.m. I open tomorrow and should go to sleep but I can’t. I keep thinking about you. You have a big surgery tomorrow. A valve of yours doesn’t work quite right. The doctors knew it might come to this but we all prayed that it wouldn’t. You have to have open heart surgery. Sweetie, I felt pretty dumb not knowing how serious it was. Nanny told me about it while I was working and I looked it up and teared up on sight. Three percent mortality rate? What does that even mean? I stared at the i-pad screen through bleary eyes trying to make sense of what I had been told.

Your momma was a mess. She hadn’t known that this was the plan. They’re going to break your sternum and you are going to have a scar going up the center of your chest. It’ll still be you. Just a more worn you. A more lived in you. We all have scars, Sweetie. Yours is just going to be bigger and ultimately better than most. This scar is going to help your heart work right. Anything is worth that. We want your heart to pump soundly and clearly through many family dinners and summer nights. We want to hear you laughing at Oliver and his silly faces. We want to watch you dance to Robyn and see you “sasquatch it” down the hallway chasing Wyatt. Sweetie, you got this. I’m praying for peace for you and for your Momma and for your Dad. Be a brave lady, Sweetie. Remember what Christopher Robin told Pooh bear? “You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” I love you.

Cape May, NJ

Sometimes I get this pull in my stomach when I see pictures of Cape May, New Jersey.

The lighthouse. The downtown. The victorian houses.

Like when you’re really thirsty and you have to down a glass of water right away

but once you do it doesn’t feel any better, you just feel really sick.

I miss the sea and the sand fleas itching in my swim suit.

Waking up in the middle of the night with sand at the bottom of your bed 

and my lips cracked by the sun.

Seeing the moon wobbly on the waves.

Building castles with wall upon wall hoping to protect it from the rising tide.
Jellyfish dead on the beach and in the sea and the dolphins eating away at them,

their voices echoing under the water.

Crabs pinching your feet  and bodysurfing into the legs of a wader.

Biking the streets to ice cream at the candy kitchen and to the stroll.

My family and your family eating dinner together

and playing on the beach late at night with no one but the ghosts crabs to see us.

The salt water taffy at the pier and your dad’s fishing trips and his fish chowder.

What I wouldn’t give to swim out deep, passed the break, to where I can’t touch

and where the water slips over my head as I dive down in a dare to touch the ocean floor.

Hi, Evan.

Come on, fellow Pickwickers!! I know there is only a trio of us left but let us write!

-SP

Samantha had just gotten her driver’s license and was eager to show it off. Being born in July had its perks - she was the oldest in her class by a month. 

“Hi Julie, hey look at this!” she shouted to her best friend Julie. Julie was standing about two feet away from her.

“What? Oh, I know, you’ve shown me that like seven times.” Julie was annoyed because she was born in August and was about to get her license too, and because Samantha had yelled into her ear.

“Shown you WHAT?” Samantha teased loudly, “Oh you mean my DRIVER’S LICENSE?” 

Julie rolled her eyes and walked away to sit at her desk. Julie wasn’t deaf; but she was standing in between Samantha and Evan. 

Evan. Tall, muscular (well, for a 16 year old), soft brown hair that wafted gently around his ears, a voice that warbled like an adolescent songbird’s when he played the guitar for assembly. Samantha was in love. 

She had never actually spoken to Evan. She wasn’t worthy, she knew, and thus had never so much attempted a conversation even though they had been in the same class for two years. Instead, she would speak overly loudly to Julie or one of the other kids in hopes that Evan would overhear and want to join in. So far, it hadn’t worked. 

But this time he glanced over at her and said “Oh cool. Your driver’s license. Dude. Jealous.”

Samantha’s eyes grew wide and she racked her brain for a response. But then the teacher came in and told everyone to shut down (the school board had passed a new rule banning the teachers from saying shut up) and so she sat down. 

Dude. Was Evan calling her dude? Was it a term of affection? Or was it a filler, like um? She pondered this for the rest of the hour.

The next day, Samantha’s mom let her drive the family car to school all by herself. Samantha had been begging, pleading, even going so far as crying herself to sleep about it (but making sure she had red-rimmed eyes when she went to get a glass of water in the kitchen where she knew her mom was) and finally her mom had succumbed. 

Samantha backed out of the driveway and then turned left to head toward Lakeside High School. She was very careful to effortlessly rest her arm on the rolled-down window and only had to grab the steering wheel with both hands a couple times. 

At the parking lot she turned in. Ahh, smooth there! She thought to herself. People were watching! Oh!

There was Evan! He was walking with one of his buddies and soon he would pass her car. Samantha started breathing nervously and felt herself getting red. She would wave, she decided, with her right arm, so that her left arm could stay nice and effortless on the window sill. That would mean letting go of the steering wheel but she could handle that. 

Here was her chance. She smiled, coyly, out the window. “Hey there,” she said, and lifter her right arm. But she had misjudged the angle she raised her arm at, and in doing so, hit the window-washer handle. 

Windshield washer fluid formed a perfect arc, a rainbow, a shower of blessings down on Evan’s head. 

“What the !?” Evan yelled. 

Samantha’s life was over. 

That Smell in the Air

Hazy lazy late summer early fall,

Smokey croaky hot breezes.

Trepidation - now I recall

Stomach pangs and voice wheezes

Outfit choices, demon voices:

Public speaking? Fix your hair!

Walking shaky, none rejoices

Hands all sweaty, almost there

Whiffs of wheat-smoke drown this old town

Now you smell it now you don’t, 

Palpitation - hearts slowing down

Fear of Freshman Year in has blown.