< Issue 4 >
She Bear
by Shae Savoy
1. Fuzzy wuzzy
There were times
before the broken
when the golden of
Mom
was a wheat-sweet and perfect hope—
like the afternoon car rides
windows open, grasshopper air
with Lionel Ritchie radio
—just me, mom, and Mr. Ritchie
and we would sing and
her vocal chords
matched like socks
and she’d turn to me
and say
I was her best
friend.
And also there was
wintertime Mom
rushing home from the
shoestore after cooking one
hundred breakfasts at McAlister’s truck stop
tires spinning on
black ice merciless
Mom swoosh-hurtling home to our trailer
to fill our arms with boxes
of the coveted Reeboks
bought on clearance seventy-five
percent off
she was so proud
she could give
(always wanted more for us).
2. Grizzly Bear
But then the rain brought
blackout slurring and
diamond ring hurling
into my lip.
The absences.
The hole in the bleachers
when I danced, when I sang,
when I shined
spiky luminous
for other
people’s
parents.
Today I called her,
as I do, every
twenty-seventh
month, when my voice
dares to rocket
from my forty-third
heart before it
boomerangs back
into my kneecaps
at her voice
-mail.
Long-distance lasso
thrown to Oklahoma.
She finally picked up.
She mumbled bourbon
kisses through the phone
and they fell like blows
careened down the canyon
and echoed there.
She Bear
by Shae Savoy
1. Fuzzy wuzzy
There were times
before the broken
when the golden of
Mom
was a wheat-sweet and perfect hope—
like the afternoon car rides
windows open, grasshopper air
with Lionel Ritchie radio
—just me, mom, and Mr. Ritchie
and we would sing and
her vocal chords
matched like socks
and she’d turn to me
and say
I was her best
friend.
And also there was
wintertime Mom
rushing home from the
shoestore after cooking one
hundred breakfasts at McAlister’s truck stop
tires spinning on
black ice merciless
Mom swoosh-hurtling home to our trailer
to fill our arms with boxes
of the coveted Reeboks
bought on clearance seventy-five
percent off
she was so proud
she could give
(always wanted more for us).
2. Grizzly Bear
But then the rain brought
blackout slurring and
diamond ring hurling
into my lip.
The absences.
The hole in the bleachers
when I danced, when I sang,
when I shined
spiky luminous
for other
people’s
parents.
Today I called her,
as I do, every
twenty-seventh
month, when my voice
dares to rocket
from my forty-third
heart before it
boomerangs back
into my kneecaps
at her voice
-mail.
Long-distance lasso
thrown to Oklahoma.
She finally picked up.
She mumbled bourbon
kisses through the phone
and they fell like blows
careened down the canyon
and echoed there.
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