Three Poems by Alison Stone

Squirrels, I’ve read, forget where they’ve hidden a third of their nuts. I’ve forgotten where I’ve hidden more than a third of my pain. Not the easy pain I feel or stop myself from feeling, but the pain I’ve caused – my clumsy, anxious shoving of the injured cat into his carrier, the times I turn from my husband, feigning sleep. People I have brushed away and will again, soothed by shiny coins of absolution I give to myself and hoard, their gold bright as others’ tears.

Carved gourds and plastic bats guard memory’s sagging porch. The moon’s thinned to an eyelash. Old fears wake in gamey hearts. Night mares gallop over fences. Something bangs on the gate. We stockpile candy, hoping for protection from egg-sticky windows and paper-draped trees, but there’s no offering to soothe the gods of power, feeding on pain in private jets whose contrails spoil the sky. My daughter’s law firm gave each college intern a five hundred dollar bottle of wine. Does it taste like the Aurora Borealis? She keeps it unopened on a shelf, a lighthouse beaming safety only chosen ships can see. My neighborhood’s crowded with fake gravestones and mass-produced bones. We’re skipping spider webs this year, told they hurt the birds, though tablecloth ghosts hang from the maple to greet children who thrust out pillowcases or pumpkins, hungry for sweetness, too young to know they should be frightened of the house down the street, its yard crammed with signs for the fascist candidate, guarded, another sign warns, by an electrified fence.

Shivering in a tiger mini and torn shirt I’d fabric markered with the cartoons from Rocket to Russia, I clutched my fake ID, breath held until the bouncers let me in. This was the world I wanted, not suburban high school where taunts of Your hair is blue! changed to Your hair is green! as Krazy Kolor faded. Not being told there’s a “right way” to understand Jane Eyre. One two three four! No costumes, no audience banter. Just the Ramones, their music, the energy of the crowd joining the energy of the songs, amplifying and sending it back and forth between audience and band. Dee Dee handing out guitar picks, which I later poked holes in and wore as earrings. Joey’s arm extended like a preacher’s. Reader, I married them. * Teen songs’ last notes done. Thinning bones still long for flight. What wings now, what chords? _______________________________________________________________ Hero photo by daveiam, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0