Weight

The reason

_we have lost track_

to run a lean life muscular slim

is that when it is time to move on

you don't need it all that girth

the weight the accumulation holding you down

because you will always have to move on

again

 

It has little to do with what you thought it did

attracting other insecure people with your absence of flesh

playing the game, of being not-you.

It has something to do with you though the actual you:

 

who would you be without the stuff

the flesh, the power you deny, all the busy

that keeps you afloat free from thinking,

That holding on is keeping you from moving on

from learning painful learning

 

Do you ever ask

 

04.15.2025

Bits and Pieces

As you age

in years and frustration,

which pieces of yourself, I wonder,

will you

add on

put on

spray on

brush on

re-color

re-shape and

apply?

Will they be equal

in weight and measure

to the pieces you

shave off

pull off

peel off

pluck out

work off and

cut off?

Will you love yourself

Live whole and forgiving

In this very skin,

The skin you were born in?

©2001 Donna Jo Wallace

Popcorn Belly

Popcorn flutters grow in my belly,

dance to the rhythm

of my breath, my blood, my movement;

you knock softly at first, waiting for an answer.

Soon, you will grow impatient

no longer satisfied with hearing shadows,

ever more insistent to see the world beyond.

You know without knowing,

the urgency of the journey

upon which you are about to embark.

I hold the breadth of my belly

as I feel you talking to me;

I dance to your tiny rhythm,

throw back my head, and laugh.

©1999 Donna Jo Wallace

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Poet's Note: Here's a little non-sequitur shared from the year that I was pregnant. I loved being pregnant. dw

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Freckle-Face

Summer sun is bringing them on
like so many tomatoes on the vine.

These are my little spots,
the ones that follow my home after a day in the sun. 
I used to think of them as bits of beach that stay.

New constellations emerge, like stars in a country sky - 
some new and faint, some gaining confidence,
others always and steadfastly there.

Now and then I remember my freckle-faced first grade teacher,
the one who said she took hers off and night and put them on in the morning, 
who declared them as beauty marks and wore them with pride.

I never thought of them as a blemish
as, sadly, I've heard some women do. 
I never had a chance to. 

I don't think of them much at all until summer comes,
then they pepper me up, and say 
hello.

© 2016 Donna Jo Wallace
shared at Poetry United / Poetry Pantry #313

Strawberry Pie

We do not speak ill of the dead.

You will not say what Grandpa did to you,

even if it is true.

Mother to daughter

the crime goes on.

Remarkable, really – clever, almost

how he got his own victims to keep his secret,

even after he was gone.

still …

Furtive voices among the clamor, family reunion.

Tendrils of truth pass between women,

words spoken between slices of strawberry pie:

It really happened and I believe you.

The story is heard in pieces and bits

Told in stops and starts, glances and silences

Over time, by different players

We have conversations about conversations,

Wonder aloud what has never been spoken

did it happen to her too? we’ll never know.

when, what did you know? oh no, not the little ones,

cousins, at least a few - have you asked your sister?

it would explain some things …

But we were a happy family.

No, it didn’t happen to me, except …

the hands, a back rub, a wrong feeling, just once in a while.

Yes, yes - my aunt says - he had wandering hands.

Another generation passed, your secret has gone rancid

and our family tree is spitting out your silent perversion

in poisonous, adult-sized problems.

And I,
I have something to tell my daughter …

©2016 Donna Jo Wallace

The Day the Sidewalk Fell On Me

Falling

The wind is smacking

against the side of the house.

From my comfortable place on the couch

watching a movie with my daughter,

I think of the garbage can,

which must be blowing down the street by now.

I will just go grab it from the curb.

My foot must have caught a spot because now

I feel my body going down

straight, stiff, graceful,

like a piece of plywood caught by gravity,

arcing up, over, down, straight down.

I have no doubt of what has happened.

My tooth is inside my mouth,

I taste blood,

I hurt everywhere

a voice pours out of

my body screaming

helpme ohgod helpme.

Twenty feet from my front door

I suddenly wonder how I will make it back.

I feel my feet lift me up (I guess my knees are okay),

my left hand arrives on the doorknob.

Had I not been able to do that I do not know

what would have happened

yes I do.

I cradle my right elbow like a broken wing,

arriving screaming help me help me.

Happy people dance across the TV screen.

Lamplight warms the room.

My quiet family

does not know

how to take in my scene.

Its okay, we’re on our way.

Suddenly it seems like a good time

to see the inside of an ER.

Sleeping

Not only do the images of the ER fill my mind

harsh light, first one doctor, then another,

but this way of getting comfortable is not comfortable.

I could have told them I couldn’t sleep this way

in a sling, afraid to move,

but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. 

My initial exhaustion has abandoned me,

my mind turns churns

raking up old debris and new,

each scenario plays in my mind;

what would have happened, and 

what did, and what might, and what will.

Finally, a thought that helps:

my arm reached out (though I have no memory of it)

my arm reached out and that is why my elbow cracked.

My elbow cracked, and that is why

my head my whole head did not hit hard

against the sidewalk

with all that force.

What a good elbow.

Thank you elbow for rescuing me. 

All the rest of me.

Doctors

I am less afraid to face the doctor than the dentist,

and I am less afraid of what they will do than what they will charge.

I know my elbow is cracked and what I must do,

but my tooth, oh, my tooth.

Since the ER doctor asked if I could press it back into place,

I tried, later,

feeling like a naughty child picking at a scab.

It helped a little, but now I cannot help but wonder

at that dead feeling in my mouth where my tooth hangs, still stunned.

No one has told it yet what has happened, and it hasn’t woken up.

My family takes me, because I need them so much now;

We are at the dentist.

my husband and his strong quiet arms,

eyes that shine with love,

and my daughter, newly quiet,

though, still ready to play a game,

merciful distraction.

When the dentist speaks of healing,

perhaps orthodontics later,

some slight discoloration,

I am amazed.

It was even lucky that in that naughty moment

I pressed my tooth back into place, because now

it would have been  too late. 

I shall yet leave this adventure without a hole in my smile,

I will learn how to eat again and elbows are only bones;

they will heal. I will heal.

The Story

When people ask what happened I say I fell.

It sounds dumb because it is.

Then I have to tell them more of the story

so they don’t think there is trouble at home.

The story wears holes in my ears.

My Mind

When I go down the stairs

I feel my feet sliding out from under me.

When I walk on the sidewalk

I watch my feet with new suspicion.

I walk bravely out the front door in broad daylight

to examine the crack where it happened.

I teeter-totter

my feet over it,

I step over it

as many times as it takes.

The things that could have happened to my body

have not left my mind.

There is skill in leaving the past in the past

and I still have much to learn.

I will quiet my mind. 

I will quiet my mind.

Learning

Each new skill I discover is like a lost treasure, found.

I am thrilled to shower, to brush my teeth, to open the Tylenol by myself.

I have learned to dress myself, to feed the fish, to eat left-handed.

When I discover I can type it is like breathing again.

Curt takes command of the kitchen, and Rose helps where she is needed.

Maybe I was always working harder than I really needed to.

I am learning something about my family,

how much they need me, and I need them.

Healing

I think often of the reflexes in my arm that saved my brain.

I think of my broken wing that heals itself.

I think of the broken wings in people’s hearts that are not so easily healed,

cancers that invade organs, and tumors that appear out of nowhere.

I think of this and feel a little greedy for claiming so much attention

on account of a simple bone.

I trace my face, my arm, my unbroken skin;

The list of things that could have happened is long

each and every day.

Today I am beautiful just for being alive.

©2009 Donna Jo Wallace.
Note: Share at Poets United / Verse First

Rhymes With Orange

The humble orange holds no fear for me

Merely for lack of a rhyme.

I hold its juicy roundness joyfully

Plump and expectant in the hollow of my hand

Remembering

how I ate one faithfully each day

when I was expecting my own

I would dig in fearlessly - such a short lunch break

yet there was always time.

Others gave up smoking, drinking, or did baby yoga.

Having not much to give up, I ate an orange.

Every day, not for me

so much as for the small one Growing

expecting me already to do my best for her

Even if I didn’t always know what was best for me.

So bravely

I tell you about the orange

Even though I am a poet

In my own little free verse world

Knowing that it doesn’t rhyme and it’s okay.

_________________

©2011 Donna Jo Wallace.