—Poetry by Cheryl Snell, Glenn Dale, MD
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain
SORROW
It’s in the details: you standing on the other side of your snapped connection, waiting for the static to subside. It’s not as if the pain could burn you, tattoo lightning across your back, although that’s what it feels like at first. Instead, the sensation leafs out east and west, flares in the mind with curdled echoes bridging one thought to another like those pop-beads your sister used for your necklaces, their painted plastic gleam flaking off in her smudged palm. Beyond that false light, light’s memory remains; and behind that, your sister dropping all the pearls rolling north and south along the floor.
It’s in the details: you standing on the other side of your snapped connection, waiting for the static to subside. It’s not as if the pain could burn you, tattoo lightning across your back, although that’s what it feels like at first. Instead, the sensation leafs out east and west, flares in the mind with curdled echoes bridging one thought to another like those pop-beads your sister used for your necklaces, their painted plastic gleam flaking off in her smudged palm. Beyond that false light, light’s memory remains; and behind that, your sister dropping all the pearls rolling north and south along the floor.
PEARL ONION
I ask if a pearl onion counts as a root vegetable. We’re in the aisle nibbling muffins we haven’t paid for yet. “Dunno. Only onions I eat come in a jar.” She’s examining a coffee mug with a red bull’s-eye design at the checkout. Not a pearl and barely an onion. What else zigs where others zag? Scrambles the elements? She knows all about the scramble, which is why it’s hard to look at her since her front teeth got knocked out. It’s not what you think─ she was thrown by the mechanical bull at our neighborhood bar. She’d treated that bull like a pet and felt it had betrayed her. Now, she’s holding the mug like a mic and tugging her mouth downward. Poor Poor Pitiful Me comes on over the loudspeaker and the lyrics pour out of her like tears. Onion, then. Not a pearl.
PUNCTUATION
He said he was coming. So far, he has not. She keeps an eye on the door, the in and out of it, the swing and stick of it, the way it has it both ways. While she waits for him, it begins to matter less whether she holds him in the flesh, or holds only her fury against him—both can warm her through the night’s stutter of ellipses.
When he finally appears in her window, he drags in more than excuse. Words as lustrous as pearls emerge from his mouth’s asterisk, and the woman has to admit the wisdom was worth the wait. The story itself is possibly probably a lie. She asks him to repeat it. It does not give, even on the third telling. He has always believed repetition yields a truer truth, granting gravitas to ditto marks. She no longer believes anything he says but the way he says it. It’s not as if she could see typos in his spoken words. Had he ever loved her, or had she misunderstood? A comma changes everything.
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Today’s LittleNip:
“After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."
—L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
___________________
Cheryl Snell may not know what happens when a poem, a novel, and a flash walk into a bar, but she has authored many collections of poetry and written a series of novels called Bombay Trilogy. She has been published in hundreds of literary journals and anthologies, including a Best of the Net. Look her up on Facebook or follow Amazon's Author Central author page for proof. She'll keep a light on.
Cheryl’s prose poems today are in response to “Pearls”, a recent Seed of the Week in Medusa’s Kitchen. Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week. And welcome to the Kitchen, Cheryl—don’t be a stranger!
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—Medusa
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work from all over the world—including
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Just remember:
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Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
