An Important Call

An Important Call


He was born on a hot July morning.
I could feel discomfort drift
from wary and avoiding glances.
One single line across a tiny palm
is an indicator extreme;
hard news to be delivered.

A test for Down Syndrome took
two weeks in nineteen eighty-two,
and everyone knows the rules;
a nurse calls to spill good news.
For everything else,
doctors call to talk plans.

So, I knew when I heard his voice,
words slow and cautious,
asking me to find a seat.
I dropped a pan of hot grease
and wasted fried chicken
on my bare summer legs.

It wasn’t from anger or shock;
I was in such a frantic rush
to get to his little blue room.
Unaware of burns and blisters,
I held my sleeping angel tightly,
in love’s sheltering embrace.


Shirley Alexander

Presents From Jim

Presents From Jim


Nineteen sixty-nine. The autumn fair was in Athens.
I was sixteen. You had finished your senior year.
You threw well aimed darts, and loaded my arms
with cheap stuffed toys; soft treasures for my bed.

Arms and objections occupied, I leaned tight
while you held me from behind, whispering
unfamiliar syllables into my warming ear.
I remember your hands, and how I wanted

the force of them firm around my breasts;
fingertips exploring chilled hard nipples.
Old enough to want, too young to recognize
the scent you were leaving on my expectations.

You stood silhouetted against carnival lights;
Ferris wheel colors haloing your dark hair.
I grabbed my instamatic; snapped a hunk of you
as you left for California. And I am still here.


Shirley Alexander
© 2009

Memories of 1963

Memories of 1963


The crop was heavy that year.
Rain had come in torrents,
and then left.

Green stalks and dried mud
became an endless blanket of white.
It was the beautiful land of cotton,
under a blue October sky.

The pickers stood nervous in line;
lean men with hungry eyes.
Loads of sacks and sweat
sat waiting to be weighed and paid.
Mama kept her sharp eye on a rusty scale,
paying bill by bill;
Thank you. Come again tomorrow.

Daddy loaded trucks for the gin.
Bales will pile high, he said.
It will be a good year, he said.
Christmas is dead ahead, he said.

The one thing we never saw coming,
was a nation swelled with grief
in the too near November.


Shirley Alexander
© 2007


author's note: For younger readers, and anyone who is not aquainted with American history, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on November 22, 1963.)

Tricking the Reaper

(Photo of Mossy Creek Church Cemetery by Shirley Alexander)


Tricking the Reaper


The land has many spirits.
They see us; they know us,
better than we know ourselves.

If I see myself through the eyes of Earth,
I will lie still, and spend my last sigh
as a wind drifting through white pines.

In this early morning, when sleep hovers
like so much smoke in corners of my rooms,
dreams are left to stir and breathe in my hands.

I choose the dreams I will keep today.
I dream to see myself, know myself as
polished seeds, moist and fertile in the land.

I am laughter breaking brittle in yellow sunlight,
a slow tongue kiss on the open mouth of love.
I am warm tears to wash away dusts of memory.

When sleep comes to rest heavy on my eyelids,
and the last wind dies silent in old trees,
I dream to touch the face of God, and he smiles.

Shirley Alexander
© 2009

Losing

What Do You Do


When you know you have lost,
and nothing will ever get it back;
do you smile at strangers to find answers?
Do you pull the quilts of exotic lovers
over still-warm-from-his-love nakedness,
and hope for a new beginning?

Southern girls are raised to talk about it.
We discuss our sexuality with sisters
behind graceful rules of etiquette and
melting ice in tall crystal glasses.
We use back street words and respect
each other for bravado of tongue.

But, we never mention the truth of losing.
A well brought up girl is not prepared
to be one of the women who has lost.
Girls who lose live in other places.
They wear thick brandy wine lipstick,
and paint their cracked toenails opaque.

So, what do you do when everyone knows
you have lost, and nothing will get him back?
The sisters look away. Smile like you own it, girl.
How do you smile through a summer night
that sweats with his memory, and sings
in cricket calls of what will never be?


Shirley Alexander
2009

Into the Hornet's Nest at Seagrave's Mill

Into the Hornets’ Nest
at Seagrave’s Mill

We called it Hornet Island.
Everyone knew the danger
of bees.

You and I, the brave ones,
could never resist a dare.

We decided to race it,
and I was first to reach shore.

No bees; just me
gloating a victory dance,
and you
giving chase.

When you caught me,
we wrestled in the grass
beneath shrub trees;
a familiar scenario, but
we were both suddenly new.

I was fourteen, and you
two years more.

Your hand cupped my bare knee;
as you leaned forward,
green eyes became my sky.

Your mouth,
in gentle pressure to mine,
was hesitant, salty, and stale sweet.

I had been kissed before;
chased on a playground,
cornered in a hallway,
surprised in a children’s game.

But, you
were the first time
I lingered.

You
were the first time
I wanted more.


Shirley Alexander
© 2009

What Happens in Boone....

What Happens in Boone…

We conquer uneven rocks slowly,
fingers groping the promise of smooth crevice,
toes raking to find proper support.
Suddenly, we are there, top of our world.

I measure slopes of distant hills,
calculating possibilities of new quarry to stalk.

You dig into your pack, produce your father’s chisel,
and search for an empty space amongst the litter of names
etched by a dozen generations of desperate lovers.

The music of your commitment,
metal to metal, pick to stone,
echoes from every direction,
and I must remove you from my thoughts
in order to hear my own dreams.

You say we will be discovered here someday;
future galactic explorers will visit a wasteland
once called Our Earth, and notice faint marks
in this ancient stone. They will decipher.
They will honor. They will name us immortal.

But, I fear you are wrong.
We, you and I, will not be discovered here.
Our vowels and consonants will not be caressed by future lips.

We will never be privileged to such glorious fame.

Your cracks will not fit the puzzle.
These words will not fit your plan,
as you have inexcusably
misspelled my name.

Shirley Alexander