Four Beats of My Heart: A Romantic Ballad
He called from San Jose,
softly begged “Wait up for me;
I need to tell you something now
and I could use a bite to eat.”
He sat in our blue wing chair
I, on the stool, expectant
for the details he would reveal.
He searched my face for sympathy.
REFRAIN:
He said ”I’ve slept with Bridget Green.
Remember my old flame.
I met her in Atlanta.
Still beautiful she is.”
“You won’t believe what happened.
She laughed at my boxer shorts.
I brought the girls some gummy bears.”
I said “How awful for you.”
REFRAIN: He said “I’ve slept with Bridget Green…
I curled my hair and blushed my cheeks
And on the way to work, I went,
A bolus of sorrow in my throat
Our vows were until death do part.
Would I leave or would I stay?
Merrily I put out his ties
his matching socks I mated,
cooked his supper, made his bed.
REFRAIN: “He said “I’ve slept with Bridget Green…
I bought him a file for his calloused feet,
some barbells for his flabby arms,
green satin boxer shorts,
and tint for his greying hair.
The hole in my heart formed a scab.
I could not tell a living soul,
For shame surrounds the wife
whose beloved has strayed.
REFRAIN: He said “I’ve slept with Bridget Green…
Like the fissure in my diamond ring
too tight now to slide off,
after two babes and a still born boy.
He never stroked my chestnut hair.
REFRAIN
He did not tip toe
Around the girls nor me, sad,
destroyed beyond all telling--
The wrong he could not understand.
He played his stereo over meals,
no space for conversation.
His sports car he polished
till it gleamed, pitiful man.
REFRAIN
My last words to him before he died
“We’re naught but best friends,” I said
I loved his voice, his once red hair,
his humor and his gall.
REFRAIN
It’s three o’clock in the morning now.
His slide rule, calculators I kept,
his games, pictures, and CDs.
And I sit staring at the wall.
Can’t we go strolling
through small bookstores together,
argue till the sun comes up,
see the Grand Canyon again?
REFRAIN
Crazy Jane’s Last Day
“All could be known or shown
If Time were but gone.”
W. B. Yeats, Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgment (1932)
Jane didn’t like to wear her teeth--
only to the Social Security office to be re-certified
disabled and indigent in a sea coast tourist town.
She had ordered a tole painting kit
off the Shop at Midnight channel,
got herself a $19/95 money order,
tucked the package notice, her only mail,
into her purse for a trip to the Post Office.
On the street the flannel violet gown
under Jane’s coat hung over laces
untied like trailing ivy.
From her seat on the bus she looked
up to see a fearful scorpion
finely tattooed across a woman’s jugular.
Home, Jane spread out the instructions,
tiny jars of paints, fingered the beautiful brush,
wanted to create an iris on a wooden box,
--got the petal’s curve,
stippled the flower’s beard,
but could not make the leaf
could not
could not
turned the page to roses, mingled pink
and white-grey paint to render
petals to appease the longing
to once have had blushing china cheeks,
to have been a collectible to someone.
Jane tried tiny violets, and when
the wooden box was ruined,
her flowers and borders not resembling
the pictures in the glossy booklet,
Crazy Jane put in her ill-fitted dentures
took a paring knife,
and made a perfect line
across both wrists,
figuring she wouldn’t get it right.
When the landlady found her,
she looked like a faded folk art jug,
arms akimbo, some rude handles.
The green paint had spilled from her table tray
across her lap, making a downward tilting
almost perfect iris leaf
falling into an open matte black box
next to maroon flat shoes.
Bonnie Henderson Schell has published poetry and short stories in Quarry West 35/36 Poets & Writers of the Monterey Bay, Cream City Review, Porter Gulch Review, WNC Woman, Chinquapin 9 & 15, DeKalb Literary Arts Journal, The Paper Bag, Flash Fiction: when Genres Collide, and Coast Lines: Eight Santa Cruz Poets. She was co-editor of On Our Own Together: Peer Programs for People with Mental Illness.
He called from San Jose,
softly begged “Wait up for me;
I need to tell you something now
and I could use a bite to eat.”
He sat in our blue wing chair
I, on the stool, expectant
for the details he would reveal.
He searched my face for sympathy.
REFRAIN:
He said ”I’ve slept with Bridget Green.
Remember my old flame.
I met her in Atlanta.
Still beautiful she is.”
“You won’t believe what happened.
She laughed at my boxer shorts.
I brought the girls some gummy bears.”
I said “How awful for you.”
REFRAIN: He said “I’ve slept with Bridget Green…
I curled my hair and blushed my cheeks
And on the way to work, I went,
A bolus of sorrow in my throat
Our vows were until death do part.
Would I leave or would I stay?
Merrily I put out his ties
his matching socks I mated,
cooked his supper, made his bed.
REFRAIN: “He said “I’ve slept with Bridget Green…
I bought him a file for his calloused feet,
some barbells for his flabby arms,
green satin boxer shorts,
and tint for his greying hair.
The hole in my heart formed a scab.
I could not tell a living soul,
For shame surrounds the wife
whose beloved has strayed.
REFRAIN: He said “I’ve slept with Bridget Green…
Like the fissure in my diamond ring
too tight now to slide off,
after two babes and a still born boy.
He never stroked my chestnut hair.
REFRAIN
He did not tip toe
Around the girls nor me, sad,
destroyed beyond all telling--
The wrong he could not understand.
He played his stereo over meals,
no space for conversation.
His sports car he polished
till it gleamed, pitiful man.
REFRAIN
My last words to him before he died
“We’re naught but best friends,” I said
I loved his voice, his once red hair,
his humor and his gall.
REFRAIN
It’s three o’clock in the morning now.
His slide rule, calculators I kept,
his games, pictures, and CDs.
And I sit staring at the wall.
Can’t we go strolling
through small bookstores together,
argue till the sun comes up,
see the Grand Canyon again?
REFRAIN
Crazy Jane’s Last Day
“All could be known or shown
If Time were but gone.”
W. B. Yeats, Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgment (1932)
Jane didn’t like to wear her teeth--
only to the Social Security office to be re-certified
disabled and indigent in a sea coast tourist town.
She had ordered a tole painting kit
off the Shop at Midnight channel,
got herself a $19/95 money order,
tucked the package notice, her only mail,
into her purse for a trip to the Post Office.
On the street the flannel violet gown
under Jane’s coat hung over laces
untied like trailing ivy.
From her seat on the bus she looked
up to see a fearful scorpion
finely tattooed across a woman’s jugular.
Home, Jane spread out the instructions,
tiny jars of paints, fingered the beautiful brush,
wanted to create an iris on a wooden box,
--got the petal’s curve,
stippled the flower’s beard,
but could not make the leaf
could not
could not
turned the page to roses, mingled pink
and white-grey paint to render
petals to appease the longing
to once have had blushing china cheeks,
to have been a collectible to someone.
Jane tried tiny violets, and when
the wooden box was ruined,
her flowers and borders not resembling
the pictures in the glossy booklet,
Crazy Jane put in her ill-fitted dentures
took a paring knife,
and made a perfect line
across both wrists,
figuring she wouldn’t get it right.
When the landlady found her,
she looked like a faded folk art jug,
arms akimbo, some rude handles.
The green paint had spilled from her table tray
across her lap, making a downward tilting
almost perfect iris leaf
falling into an open matte black box
next to maroon flat shoes.
Bonnie Henderson Schell has published poetry and short stories in Quarry West 35/36 Poets & Writers of the Monterey Bay, Cream City Review, Porter Gulch Review, WNC Woman, Chinquapin 9 & 15, DeKalb Literary Arts Journal, The Paper Bag, Flash Fiction: when Genres Collide, and Coast Lines: Eight Santa Cruz Poets. She was co-editor of On Our Own Together: Peer Programs for People with Mental Illness.