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M
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Username: mjm

Post Number: 4025
Registered: 11-1998
Posted on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 3:18 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Honorable Mention
Wood. Metal. Glass.
Maryann Hazen Stearns

This is not another poem
about when I was a child.
Not about sitting on the curb
in front of the house
on Spruce Street.
Not about scraping
a Popsicle stick on the macadam
until it was sharp.
The stick that gave me
nightmares for a week
because it turned into
the fingers of that man
who touched me.

Because he didn't
and this isn't.


Nor is this a poem
about my cousin who
has the same name as me.
Or the heavy metal braces
she wore on her legs
or the way she clomped around
like Frankenstein's monster.
It's not about the way she would
deliberately step
on my fingers or toes
under the front porch
until I screamed for her
to stop oh please stop
I won't tell I promise.

Because she didn't
and neither did I.


And this certainly isn't a poem
about the tiny white mice
we had for pets in a glass tank.
It's not about the morning
I found my brother laughing
as he told me to check it out
this is so cool or about the way
there was only one mouse
who darted around the cage
while the pink-eyed head
of the other lay in damp pine shavings
or about the pain I felt for it
or about the way I cried
or how my tears only made
my brother laugh harder.

No. It isn't.

This is not a poem
about childhood
or memories
or pain because
I'm a grown woman now
and these things
are meaningless to me.

Yes. They are.

~*~

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