Three Poems

Apathy

At 3:30, your eldest son walks in
and you ask about his day.
You set aside fifteen
full minutes but by the time
he starts telling you about lunch hour
and sitting next to his best friend
whose cat was run over by a truck
last weekend, you're staring at
the tops of the curtains, the dust
huddled in the creases.
You'll surely have to take them down
and wash them, you think.
Or do they require dry-cleaning?
You can't remember and it's important,
the difference, so you tell your son
to shush while you climb on a chair
and search for a care tag -- did you rip them all off?
They must be there somewhere, and it's not
until past midnight when you're in bed
and your reading's done and your pills
are beginning to take effect when you realize
you've left your boy
in a cafeteria with mediocre food and mournful
company and you're sorry 'God, you're so sorry!'
but you're also tired and look, it's late, it's so late.


To Be Repeated Daily

We expect you to rise,
spoon eggs from your navel,
tap them open against the blade
of your hipbone. We expect
your tongue to burn, a hiss
and crackle when the yolks
slide aboard. We expect warmth
glowing always in your eyes, your arms
the perfect width to open and reach,
to hold someone, to hold us, all of us.
Your hands will be sieves,
straining salt from your sweat, allowing
us to drink water from you, after
the eggs have gone down, smooth
and solid. Your flesh is a blanket.
We'll use it when we want, how.
We'll curl up and give you our small
breaths. Your breasts, you thought
they'd be pillows. They are not pillows.
They are knots that secure us, fasten us to you.
We expect you to know this, all of this.
We expect you to weep only when you are alone.
We expect you to know you'll never be alone.


Fortune

I see you rising at dawn in Superman pajamas,
your breath strong as a refinery.

The television spills its blue glow
over your cowlicks -- inherited, like the flat mole
on your palm, from me.

Spoon, comb. We wield our tools
and while you scoop sugary shapes from milk,
I take up my task.

The day the school nurse sent me home with a note,
my mother bound an orange towel around my head
and walked me to the drugstore.
I wasn't a companion, but proof
the black shampoo was not for her.

The comb she purchased had teeth fine as a bar code.
She scraped it against my skull, showing me
white specks clinging to black plastic,
saying, disgustedly, eggs.

In bed that night, I felt my scalp had been torn
into a million neat lines, each one a stinging pulse
that kept me awake and sweating
into the garbage bag enclosing my pillow.

This morning routine with you
has me working through tangles, smoothing back
cowlicks, and when smoke rises
from the kitchen, I need to know
if the smell of burning toast will one day trigger
the sensation of a comb breaking waves of hair,
taming it toward symmetry, or the thought instead
of how I stood back and admired you,
stepped out of your way,
so that I could see you rising.

More About Theresa Boyar:

Theresa Boyar's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Wicked Alice, Small Spiral Notebook, The Florida Review, Rattle, Rock Salt Plum, and Literary Salt. She lives with her husband and two sons in Helena, Montana, where she is desperately trying to find the time to complete her short story collection. You can visit her at her website: www.theresaboyar.com

You can email Theresa at theresa@mt.net.