Girls at Camp Winning Hands
In this online camp brochure
for patients of Shriner’s Hospital,
ten teen girls pose for a picture.
In the summer sunshine,
they stand in pink t-shirts
with blue and lavender tulle skirts.
They smile and laugh,
at the same time hiding
their stumps of arms
or misshapen hands
behind their backs
or in the folds of their skirts.
Except one.
She stands in the front row,
turned so that her missing lower arm
is clearly obvious.
Posture straight, hip and knee thrust forward,
she seems to beam:
“Arm or no arm, world,
here I come!”
The Matryoshkas
Vacuuming my grandmother’s living room,
I gaze on her Matryoshka dolls.
Arranged on a shelf from largest to smallest,
they smile wide from round, red-cheeked faces,
holding flowers in their painted-on hands.
My thoughts turn to another Matryoshka set,
a live one, all Holocaust survivors
scattered in Belarus, the Ukraine, Kirghizstan, and Russia,
a Matryoshka set no one wants to display or see.
These grandmothers wear tattered, stained brown and green sweaters,
knitted beanie hats, and woolen kerchiefs.
Dull eyes stare from Internet pictures and videos.
I remember watching all those videos,
each leading to another toothless,
sunken-cheeked Babushka bent over a cane.
One struggled with two big sticks
to scoot herself around her run-down, paint-chipped shack
in a chair without wheels.
When their monthly food boxes and hot meals were delivered,
their flat eyes glistened with tears,
one woman kissing the box.
Mona Lisa Gets Het Mug Shot
I stand against the pallor
of a white screen,
posing for my passport photo.
The man taking the picture
tells me not to smile,
at least not showing my teeth.
So I close my lips,
letting them turn up just a tad,
like I did when I posed for Leonardo
that long ago, overcast summer afternoon.
The man cuts the photos, hands one to me.
I laugh. It’s like a mug shot,
with my hair frizzing in all directions,
the oil on my face in full light.
Not nearly as flawless as Leonardo made me look.
But it’s my key to travel
down the swirling road
in the background of the painting,
to the dark trees and pools along it,
Paris, Athens, all the countries
along the Mediterranean Sea,
to the pyramids of Egypt,
Israel, Turkey,
to the beyond,
past this land of “sit still and pose.”
Jennifer Fenn has been writing poetry since high school. Her work has been published in seventeen journals, including Song of the San Joaquin, The Orchards, Brevities, Time of Singing, and Tiger’s Eye. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers. She has won prizes in contests, most recently the Roadrunner Prize, awarded by the California Federation of Chaparral Poets.
In this online camp brochure
for patients of Shriner’s Hospital,
ten teen girls pose for a picture.
In the summer sunshine,
they stand in pink t-shirts
with blue and lavender tulle skirts.
They smile and laugh,
at the same time hiding
their stumps of arms
or misshapen hands
behind their backs
or in the folds of their skirts.
Except one.
She stands in the front row,
turned so that her missing lower arm
is clearly obvious.
Posture straight, hip and knee thrust forward,
she seems to beam:
“Arm or no arm, world,
here I come!”
The Matryoshkas
Vacuuming my grandmother’s living room,
I gaze on her Matryoshka dolls.
Arranged on a shelf from largest to smallest,
they smile wide from round, red-cheeked faces,
holding flowers in their painted-on hands.
My thoughts turn to another Matryoshka set,
a live one, all Holocaust survivors
scattered in Belarus, the Ukraine, Kirghizstan, and Russia,
a Matryoshka set no one wants to display or see.
These grandmothers wear tattered, stained brown and green sweaters,
knitted beanie hats, and woolen kerchiefs.
Dull eyes stare from Internet pictures and videos.
I remember watching all those videos,
each leading to another toothless,
sunken-cheeked Babushka bent over a cane.
One struggled with two big sticks
to scoot herself around her run-down, paint-chipped shack
in a chair without wheels.
When their monthly food boxes and hot meals were delivered,
their flat eyes glistened with tears,
one woman kissing the box.
Mona Lisa Gets Het Mug Shot
I stand against the pallor
of a white screen,
posing for my passport photo.
The man taking the picture
tells me not to smile,
at least not showing my teeth.
So I close my lips,
letting them turn up just a tad,
like I did when I posed for Leonardo
that long ago, overcast summer afternoon.
The man cuts the photos, hands one to me.
I laugh. It’s like a mug shot,
with my hair frizzing in all directions,
the oil on my face in full light.
Not nearly as flawless as Leonardo made me look.
But it’s my key to travel
down the swirling road
in the background of the painting,
to the dark trees and pools along it,
Paris, Athens, all the countries
along the Mediterranean Sea,
to the pyramids of Egypt,
Israel, Turkey,
to the beyond,
past this land of “sit still and pose.”
Jennifer Fenn has been writing poetry since high school. Her work has been published in seventeen journals, including Song of the San Joaquin, The Orchards, Brevities, Time of Singing, and Tiger’s Eye. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers. She has won prizes in contests, most recently the Roadrunner Prize, awarded by the California Federation of Chaparral Poets.
