I wanted that plastic recorder.
Wanted it so much that when mom
suggested I could earn that two dollars
by defrosting the freezer, I sat
on the black-and-white tiled kitchen floor
with a blow drier on high. For hours.
Sat there watching each drip.
Sat there longer, perhaps,
than the cumulative time I played
my recorder, but I tell you,
I cherished that brown plastic tube.
Every “Hot Cross Buns” I played
was an anthem to self-determination.
Almost fifty years later I don’t remember
what I read yesterday, but I remember
one a penny, two a penny.
I remember the drip, drip, drip of the frost.
I remember my mom saying,
No, not yet. Keep going.
I remember my lips on the mouthpiece,
the flesh of my fingertips
pressed on the holes,
the shrill music filling the kitchen.
Posts Tagged ‘childhood’
In Second Grade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, commerce, money, mother, music, work on March 30, 2025| 2 Comments »
Recess, Second Grade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, childhood, grass, inner child, nature on April 28, 2024| 13 Comments »
Past the blacktop, past the swings
a girl has wandered into tall grass,
dry and golden and high, and look
how she tucks in beneath the seed heads
and makes in the stems a nest,
lies on her back and looks up at the sky.
She can hear the screams and squeals
of other children as they play.
But here she is daughter of silence,
fallen angel of sunshine. There are wings
inside her breath. What does she know
that I have forgotten? What does she
love that I now squint to see?
Where does she still live in this woman,
this wanderling who was me?
Offering Gentleness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, clouds, gentleness on September 7, 2022| 6 Comments »
Gentle is time to be gentle.
—Ole Dalby, private correspondence
Gentle is time to be gentle,
he writes, and I let myself
fall into the cadence of his words
the way as a girl I once dreamt
I could fall into a cloud—
something soft beyond soft,
something infinitely calm.
Gentle is time to be gentle,
he writes, and though
my mind struggles to decipher it,
my body instantly nestles
into the tenderness of it,
as if he has wrapped each word
in cumulonimbus, as if gentleness
is the only obvious path, as if I, too,
might offer such gentleness
to someone else with words
spun of nimbostratus, with syllables
of cirrus, with thoughts as cushiony
as the clouds we once drew as kids,
those clouds we once lived in
before we were told we could not.
The Pale Scar on My Ankle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bike, childhood, daughter, father, love on June 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
reminds me of the day
my dad held me
in front of him
while riding his bike
and fifty years later,
I remember most
the moments before
the bite of the spokes
when we were laughing
in the muggy Wisconsin June,
the sky dark with rain,
the joy of being held by him,
the thrill of going fast,
the wind in our faces.
I remember most
how he picked me up
as I cried and carried me
as if I were precious.
Fifty years later,
though he is the one
in pain, he still picks me up
and carries me every time
we speak. Thousands
of miles away, he holds
me close.
Red Rover, Red Rover
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, friendship, game, sickness on April 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
The only rule:
keep the chain intact.
I didn’t know
in the grade school gym
it was a way to practice
meeting all that would try
to break us apart,
practice being bombarded,
practice calling in our fear.
Red Rover, Red Rover
let sickness come over.
Once it felt like a game.
Now—oh friend.
Hold on to my wrist.
I’ll hold on to yours.
Ode to the Bic Lighter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, fire, light on February 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
My first lighter I found in a parking lot—
a smooth red plastic tube that fit
in my pocket. I knew playing with fire
was dangerous. I knew I wanted
to learn how. I remember trying again
and again to get the right purchase
with my thumb on the serrated sparkwheel.
I rolled and rolled until my skin was raw,
until at last the brief flame sputtered then died.
It wasn’t long before it came second nature—
the smooth flick needed to produce a spark,
the slight pressure on the red tongue
to maintain steady flame.
I learned how it burns
to be lit up too long,
but once you know how to make light,
how easy it is to bring it with you
everywhere you go.
This poem is published in the wonderful ONE ART Poetry Journal
In the Basement of the Old Stone Library
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, childhood, library, reading on November 17, 2020| 6 Comments »
Off the hot street and down
the narrow stairwell,
I entered the smell of books—
a musty scent of paper and ink.
How I loved entering the stacks,
shelves taller than I was.
Loved running my hands
along hardcover spines
wondering at the worlds inside.
I was allowed twelve thin books,
that meant twelve chances
to travel to realms where monkeys
stole hats and the Whangdoodle snoozed.
Twelve chapters in which I
was no longer an awkward girl
but a baker in an old village
or a mouse in an attic befriending a girl
who was something like me,
or at least like the girl I wished I could be,
a girl who was brave, a girl
who couldn’t help but stumble
every single time
into happily ever after.
Things You Didn’t Want to Play
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, loneliness, play, writing on October 2, 2020| 6 Comments »
Like Monopoly. Because you always ended up landing on Boardwalk
where the red hotel meant you owed two thousand dollars
and all you had were mortgaged railroads. Or like checkers,
because really, what was fun about moving small plastic disks
diagonally and hearing the other kid say, “King me.” And soccer?
Only because your mother made you because she wanted
to be coach. You did want to play school, but no one else did,
so you were the principal, the teacher, the student,
giving yourself homework, grading it yourself. Writing in red
in your best cursive at the top of the page, “See me.”
You didn’t want to play basketball, because no one else
ever chose you for their team. Even though you were tall.
And you were chosen last for volleyball, too. And t-ball.
And Red Rover. And dodge ball. Is it any wonder your favorite
way to play was to visit the junkyard and find treasure?
Or to walk along the lake to look for flowers and worms?
Is it any wonder you learned to love playing alone
in quiet rooms with an empty page and a pen?
There was no way then you could have known
that it would save you—no, you just thought
you were playing the only way you knew how,
walking through the only doors
you knew how to open yourself.
Those Bright Lights
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, ferris wheel, innocence, Pewaukee on July 13, 2020| 3 Comments »
That was the summer
they drove the Ferris wheel into town,
erecting it in the park—
and James Taylor and Carly Simon
sang to each other over the radio
and people paid money
to throw ping pong balls into small jars
for the chance to win a goldfish;
to throw darts at balloons
for a giant teddy bear.
The park smelled of beer and grilled corn
and from the top of the ride,
I could almost see the whole town—
down to the five and dime and up to the cemetery.
Those were the days before I knew words
such as mercy or duplicity or forgiveness.
The cotton candy melted on my tongue in sharp crystals.
The Ferris wheel was gone the next day,
my pocket full of tickets I couldn’t spend.
Remembering the Bozo Bop Bag
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bozo, childhood, poem, poetry, resilience on February 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
My brother thrilled to pummel and punch
that red-nosed clown again and again—
an inflatable plastic sack with a round weighted base—
and always the clown returned to standing.
Forty years later, I still don’t want to punch anything,
wish, instead, I could be more like that red and blue Bozo,
could roll and twist and spin each time
life knocks me over, and though I wobble,
though I bob, I would defy the laws of physics
return to standing, yes I would,
and find a way to smile.