Featured Poet: January 2012 Vol. 4 # 3

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:12:41 +0000

Shanan Ballam

Shanan Ballam’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals, including Crab Orchard Review, Main Street Rag, Indiana Review, and Cream City Review. Her chapbook, The Red Riding Hood Papers, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2010. Her poetry manuscript, Pretty Marrow, was a semi-finalist for the 2010 Brittingham and Polk Poetry Prizes, the 2010 May Swenson Award, and the 2010 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry. She teaches poetry writing and academic writing at Utah State University.

While Mowing the Lawn, I Realize I May Be Pregnant

Paradise of panic! The self-propelled

mower screams, drags

me in messy loops around the yard.

One round, two: the blade lops off

gold dandelion heads, lurches

toward the broom bush,

yellow lush of fragrant blooms.

Frantically bumblebees suck

sweet nectar. The world’s shrunk

to a bright box of noise:

my skin’s the bronze bash

of a cymbal, my footprints sizzle.

My fingers are a crimson tingle.

Kids across the street shout,

but the sound’s drowned out

by the mower’s roar.

It yanks me under the pine tree

and a branch whips my cheek, salty sting.

I’m inside the sound of shattering:

my father’s huge fist smashing

glass, the dining room table,

phone splintered on the kitchen floor.

I’m inside the wet hiss,

my mother’s drunk lips on my ear:

Please, wrap your hands

around my throat and squeeze.

I slip on slick grass,

fall to my knees, but don’t stop,

pop up like a jack-in-the-box,

knees grated, smeared wet-green.

Just last week, on my father’s birthday,

his new wife woke to blood streaming

down her thighs, a tear in her uterus.

She cradled the stillborn fetus

for hours. As always,

Dad was drunk the whole time.

The old bird feeder hangs

in the pine like a broken arm,

like a forgotten piñata,

and I want to beat it

‘til the stale seeds spill.

In the grass, violets shine like eyes.

The mower slices them, spits

out retinas, eyelashes.

Blown into sky,

an eyelash is a wish.

My sister tore all hers out,

held them in her palm and blew.

Dew blazes in the lawn.

The mower tears toward

one blade burning gold,

lonely as a birthday candle.

Once More to the Lake

–for my sister

Didn’t you just tell me you loved me?

Didn’t you just say you were sad about god?

And just now, was that the sound

of early morning, lake softly breathing?

Now, at this hour, I can’t

bear to let go.

Didn’t we just dance on the beach with bare feet?

Weren’t we lovely?

And wasn’t my hair curled,

weren’t my lips painted pink,

lily of the valley pinned,

sweet perfume soaking

my hair? Wasn’t that yesterday?

And weren’t we happy, and weren’t we strong,

muscles flexing under tanned skin

as we dove in, trout spinning

their shimmering funnels around us?

Weren’t we a family?

Weren’t we?

And wasn’t our father charming

that day on the lake,

his blue hat flying off in the wind?

And wasn’t he marvelous,

his enormous authority as he leaned

from the truck window, Marlboro dangling

from his mouth, his silent concentration

as he snugged, inch by inch,

our trailer into its narrow slot?

And wasn’t he wonderful

in the mornings before he’d been

drinking, how he hauled

the jetskis into the lake,

rainbows of gasoline glistening?

We watched strapped

in bright pink life-jackets

as he choked the engines,

then throttled them

until they screamed.

I loved him, you know, this is our story.

We wore green bikinis,

cut-offs and thongs, white-rimmed

sunglasses even,

we all drank rum in a cabin,

and even then you knew

you shouldn’t marry

that man, but you married him,

even then he slammed you down

on the concrete and our parents never said a thing,

even then he forgot your birthday,

and you were only sixteen, and that was before

you were pregnant, before I whispered abortion,

before we dove into

the lake and witnessed our own

distortion under water,

before we knew our father would not

survive his life, the life we helped

construct and destroy, and everyone keeps

saying it was not,

it is not your fault,

and it’s not,

but go back, go deeper: had we not

been so clever, had we

not been so evil,

had we not fought over

the one blue cup, had we not

bawled in the Mexican restaurant—

if we went back maybe we’d try

to be better, learned to build

engines because having only

daughters, he had to do this

alone.

Didn’t we all love one another

once on the lake before

we could look back and grieve,

before cancer in the femur,

before alcohol poisoning,

before liver failure,

before all these sad children,

before everything collapsed,

weren’t we blessed,

weren’t we lovely?

Once I wore perfumed flowers

and a white cotton dress,

once we smiled

for the camera

near the lake, its cold

turquoise drowsy and deep

while we stood, clinging.

I’m asking you to take me,

take me back, once more,

to the lake.

My Paper Boat

You were an albino trout waving

its tail in the river’s cold current,

but when I crept closer I saw

you were a white swath of plastic,

perhaps fabric torn from a dress,

or paper. You were a suicide

note, or a love poem snagged

on a ragged branch. I wanted

to peel off my socks, wade into

the shock of winter run off, wanted

to take you with me, your words,

your little body. I imagine

someone folded you into a warm

pocket, dropped you by accident,

or pinned you to a tree till spring wind

ripped you down. Why did I not save

you, lay you in the sun. Why did I

not lift you, moss-limp and lovely, press

your river-blurred words to my face.

You are my love note to the world,

my paper boat. I wish you

could let go and swirl away

to a place unblemished, where light

could pour its honey onto your face.

I wish you could let go and forget

I stood here on the bank, body filled

with river stones, hand clutching

a heavy set of keys. I should have

opened my mouth to taste you,

chewed and swallowed you, rescued

you from unsnagging into new

violence, tumble-lick of rocks,

river gnashing you, ragdoll.

Why did I not kneel, crawl

into the river to you,

my bright pinwheel.

» Shanan Ballam

Featured Poet: January 2012 Vol. 4 # 3