|
by Annette Marie Hyder
"Sunday Lessons"
Sundays were not for playing
as Saturdays were.
You could not play hookey from them
as you could from school.
Sundays dragged you out of bed
with the grim promise
of spiritually upbuilding association
which really meant sitting,
your legs sticking out over the edge
of the wooden chair,
contemplating the dips and valleys
of freshly laundered slip and dress,
fending off the demons,
Headnod and Gapemouth,
who attempted to possess you
through the enticement
of the speaker's
soporific voice.
You had to wrestle,
like Jacob with his angel,
with your own imagination
which could easily betray you
to a head thumping or a thigh pinch
from your reverent grandmother
who did not intend to tolerate
the disrespect of legs pumping
(however, they were horses running)
or fingers fraying the fringes of her shawl
(however, they were princesses dancing
in dresses dear embellished).
Following these lessons was the mortification
of long suffered curls
wooed by old lady fingers
touching them for luck
and breathed over adoringly.
You thought you couldn't
hate them more
(the curls that is)
and that reminds you
that you have freckles
and how they clash with everything
(however, you've heard that they can be bleached,
have resolved to influence your mother
into buying buttermilk and salt
but will not tell her why).
Could anything equal the unfairness
of not being allowed to spend the rest of the day
as you saw fit?
It was squandered on a mandatory family dinner,
the fame of which far exceeded its taste,
and must be downed in the appetite dampening presence
of the great matriarch, she of the woefully strong arm,
the spaghetti cooking grandmother.
T.V. following dinner was not a treat
but rather a further trial consisting of 60 Minutes
that could be tolerated
only by fear of the aforesaid strong arm
combined with the patterns on the carpet,
which harbored further worlds than dust mites
and dust motes,
which in and of themselves
were golden messengers
of relief
spinning stories as they spun
in slant of setting sun.
Bedtime following that
resurrected your autonomy
and you viewed Monday with a martyr's patience
and the hard won knowledge that even Sundays
have to end.
|
"Annette makes her home in Youbetchaitscoldhere, Minnesota. Being from
Florida originally, she will never accept that Minnesota winters are not
cruel and unusual. She is of French and Irish descent -- and she thinks
that it shows.
"Her day job occupies her with print magazine work: conceptualizing and
editing as well as writing. In addition to magazine articles, she writes
interviews and reviews, essays (for viewpoint columns), short stories,
flash fiction and, of course, poetry. Her publishing credits in the
preceding genres encompass both print and electronic mediums. Her work
can be read on-line, now and in the months to come, in Eclectica,
Conspire, Poems Niederngasse, Poets Canvas, The Green Tricycle, Thunder
Sandwich, Clean Sheets, Fables, Samsara Quarterly, Mentress Moon and
Blue Fifth Review, with more forthcoming.
"She is a contributing editor for Poems Niederngasse, where you can read
her pithy and engrossing reviews on poetry books and chapbooks.
"Annette sees life as a poem that is constantly altering its form to
accommodate one's world view/experiences: sometimes a sonnet, sometimes
haiku, sometimes graffiti on a wall. She believes that in love you
should not say it with flowers, you should say it with words. Diamonds,
however, are always acceptable." -- amh
|
"Challah"
(for Rebekah)
Our hands floured with expectations,
we have pressed the heels of our palms
into each other's lives;
kneaded and shaped,
made something indispensable
of ourselves for one another.
We are staple, staff
and daily bread
each to the other.
You have been salt to my leaven
and I have been oil to any container
that has tried to restrain you.
We are wrapped, united, intertwined
pieces of a braid of challah;
rising on each other's shoulders
into what we will become.
Look what we have made,
the fine texture
the savory aroma.
We eat it together.
"Crack"
You can taste it
in the peppermint burst of flavor you get
when you breathe in an icy breath
of last night's
last ice storm
of the season.
You can see it in the birds
wings flapping
like meaningful tea leaves
floating across
the china cup bowl of the sky.
You feel it colored thickly
on your skin
by the crayon yellow sunshine.
CRACK --
rain running down
the sides of trees
leaves colors in its paths.
Spring has cracked all over you
like an egg
bright yellow
and wet.
|
text © Annette Marie Hyder, computer graphics © Jeannette Harris, July 2001. All rights reserved.
|
|
A Country Rag