Appearing with Orange Juice, A Poetry Journal (July 2024)
Sound Bites
My mother, the first person I love
who hurts with a spoon full of scorn.
What I hate most I got from her
— tongue, acid as horseradish, lying
on the belly of beef tenderloin.
Her salty scramble of maternal wisdom
tying my words into wounded silence.
What I love most is her opposite,
spectacular women who dared to go
to college when most got married
at nineteen, their love language
aroused by an awakened mind
rather than a smiley face fashioned
on a chocolate chip pancake.
My mother came close,
braving a path as Michigan’s first female
sportswriter, her words a grand slam
of competition and comebacks.
Detoured by a ring, chooses
confetti frosting, finds herself
in the kitchen during the Superbowl.
Her score of self-losses too sharp to stay silent,
she aims her regret toward daughters
she said she wanted, sends us to college,
then spits on our liberated dreams.
I get the grades, get published, buy the house,
stay single. Not one to want more for me
than what she could have had, her scald turns
to seethe. Coaxed by success, I come back at her
with the bitter of words so well taught.
Extinguishing Lies
My forever marriage was a starter marriage
and I have told half-truths about it for an
eternity. I didn’t end my marriage after he
nearly burned our house down with an oven
mitt. But that’s how I told it.
Fueled with turned-in anger, picket fence denied
by my pick of a life partner, I cried, I married
a drunk! Soaked in Jack Daniels, flames torching,
he simmered, You don’t have permission to save
me, and I broke free from the inferno. Broke
my vows, broke his heart, took the blame.
Who leaves someone with an addiction?
asked law school friends. His crusade a clever
blueprint of manipulation. He got the house, the
401K. In court, lawyers lie; marry one at your
own risk. I cleaved my own campaign with veiled
contempt, the drunk’s wife wronged. I was corked
tight, on a decided pilgrimage of work promises not to
be waylaid by hangovers, headaches, or dulled wits.
Once on the partner track, he chased after it.
Heinekens during Monday Night Football, Bacardi
shots at Happy Hour, jelly jars of bourbon on a rainy
Saturday. Boring to me, numbing to him. So I rekindle,
tempt, attempt with a foundation of fortitude. Run,
read, sex together. The better half, be better, be more
than a working wife. A ring of smoke and fumes leaves
an echo reverberating on the unsteady bottle of my
poor choice. I used the fire to tell the story, exchanging
a life I wouldn’t have for one I thought I deserved.
Years on, my self-gaslighting sparks a truth, a flint
of wedded responsibility, I let go. Today, I almost never
think of him. It has taken me longer than the five years I
was married to forget the person in the marriage I have
now left behind. Well, that’s tidy. Still half-truthing, still
exercising ghosts. What I really did was sing a hymn of
devout hypocrisy. Measuring the alcohol consumption on
every date, weighting an indifferent response as equal
to ill temperament, not saving him(s) – even when asked.
What hasn’t left is me as judge in a court room of forgiveness,
yet to grant relief, to love despite firestorms, warts, and all.
Susan Kolon 