Global Warming

Long before we knew the temperature of Daddy’s brain was shifting, so to speak,

the mercury inched upward.

Liquid memories began to drip into the sea, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, and no one noticed,

or not much.

Mama got annoyed, of course, convinced it was his quiet yet persistent way to pay her back for all her past remarks that hurt him, the sins she’d done, the kindnesses she’d overlooked.

When doctors validated Daddy’s, well, condition, affixing it with labels long and clinical, the guilt that she accepted, almost welcomed, wasn’t something she could wave, a fan to cool him, slow the glacial melting of his mind.

And now, years later, it is more like global warming. Chunks of iceberg – decades, occupations falling with great splashes to the salty sea of tears we choke back as he asks another question that he asked before and asks perhaps another six or seven times within the hour.

Where is your mother?

What am I doing here?

I don’t know what’s going on. I feel so useless.

Where is your mother?

What am I doing here?

I don’t know what’s going on. I feel so useless.

And to be sure, a melting glacier has but little purpose.

Still, it has a grandeur and a substance that is mighty,

that is fierce, although diminishing a little every second,

and more each passing day.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017

Coloring Book

Perhaps he joined me long ago to color in the Lennon sisters

or the Barbie dolls within the thick and muslin-hued pages
of a book of outlines waiting for the flesh to grow beneath
the ivory crayon, the periwinkle eyes, plain brown for hair
(a stickler, even then, for honesty). But more than likely he did not
have time with lesson plans to write, or garden needing weeding,
getting ready for a fishing trip that we would take, just he, my sister, and myself.

Today, I sat with Daddy, so unsure of where he was or what was going on,
and opened up the book I bought at Ollie's (such a bargain!) with
the scenes of Paris and around the world. And though I hadn't
planned it, as he etched the Eiffel Tower on the one page, I began
to color in a city scape upon the opposite, while feeling good that for a
span of time, just that, he wasn't troubled or confused, but coloring,
his little girl and he, the time he'd spent on other things so long ago
apparently available, held
in trust, against this afternoon.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017

Satin

The multi-colored satin hangers, in the waning hours
of an estate sale, failed to entice hungry crowds
who loudly pawed the furniture and tools of someone who
might never have invited them for coffee, or a swim
nearby. The lake community, perhaps, had mourned
for months before the relatives had finished with dividing
up the best, and all the rest was priced to sell.
The signs were many, promising a bigger treasure trove
than what was left when I arrived the second day. A weary
woman saw me looking in the closet.
Inquiring what the hangers would be going for,
she said a quarter each, no two, it's time we packed it in
(that last remained unspoken but I heard it from the lines
around her smile). And so I bought them, but not all.
A few I left behind so that the closet, missing a dead
woman whose name I'll never know,
and missing the weight of her clothes
and missing her lingering scent
will be, perhaps, there in the weeks to come,
or even longer in the present market,
forgotten when the house is finally sold.
They hang there patiently and wait in darkness
for some mother's loving hands
to hang Sunday dresses for some sweet little girl
remembering that long ago, their lady was one too.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017

Beautiful Lady

The prompt for my writer's group this
month (and I can't make it anyway)
was to complete the sentence:
"I am beautiful because..."

I am beautiful

because

my mother said it,

or my father,

or another man?

Is there an absolute

or are we talking relative?

Some natives know that

beauty means huge drooping earlobes

but at some address, it is golden tresses;

at still others, ebony. Straight teeth

or lots of curves, a certain weight

(which differs greatly in the world,

the target, Cinderella’s shoe of pounds or grams

abounds in ads and articles that tell the

mindless masses

what is beautiful this year.

A teen, I read a book whose

character said, “Every woman is

as beautiful as

some man thinks that she is.”

It made a big impression at the time.

And then I had to talk myself into

another truth to fit the circumstances,

so I didn’t think that it depended all

on me. A man who wants your love

will tell you anything.

A man who truly loves you

sees the beauty of so many things:

a smile, a sassiness, the eyes,

the way the hips sway back and forth,

and he is blinded to the faults

that (honestly) exist in many

forms and fashions.

I’m beautiful? You bet I am,

and any woman who knows love,

(but even more than that, she loves herself)

will say the same. The scars and sags

and imperfections only add more

interest to the eye of someone keen

on knowing everything about you

(which includes the woman at

the center of the conversation, too).

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017

Grammatically, "We"

There is, at times, no poetry,

no words or paragraphs,
no songs to bring forth spinal chills or tears,
and no pontificating prose affixed to
pretty cardboard monuments
to this or that emotion.
And at such times, the feelings
fight, give way to facts,
hard truths that are self-evident
but which we're prone to cover up
with syrup, sex, or sentiment
which have their places, have their
name cards at the table nicely lettered
in calligraphy. We honor them.
But even then, there is a recognition
of the knowledge underneath it all,
fierce this-is-it that cannot be
removed or altered or embarrassed
by the faint and vain attempts
to make apologies, to blush,
to lie, to cover up, to dress it up in
clothes that don't embarrass, call
attention to the bumps and lumps of
our existence.
That is where I want to meet you,
in the honest glare of stark awareness
that there is an Us.

That there has always been,
and always will be, Us.

Whatever argument
you may present,
whatever pacifying poultice
you apply to wounds that only you
can feel, I reel, I swoon, I agonize,
I glory in the Us and nothing more.


(c) Ellen Gillette

Game of Love

He is the tiddly to her wink,

the mumblety to her peg,
the cat to her cradle,
and the stand for her keg.
He is chute to her ladder,
the trap for her mouse,
the pursuit of all her trivia,
and card to her house.
He's the ring around her rosie,
the candy to her land.
No matter what the game ...
supply to her demand.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017

The Song of the Seed (A Long Time Coming)

He picked a flower, gently pulling every petal out

and then a single seed from somewhere in the middle

and he held it there between a finger and his thumb.

It was a special flower, and a special seed, unlike

the sort we see in gardens or arrangements at the

florist shop. He whispered, “It is time to choose a family.”

But deep inside the tiny seed the living thing it held

was smart enough to know it wasn’t smart enough at all.

“What’s that? He laughed. “You’d rather not?

You’d rather that I chose instead? Alright,” he mused.

“Alright. Let’s see. You’re stubborn and I see your strengths,

but there is weakness there as well. You must be nurtured

carefully. I think you’ll be a second child, with parents who’ve

had practice . You will learn, from them, the power of commitment,

from your sister, bravery, and from the brother you will lose

a loyalty and love for what you cannot understand.

There will be other pain along the way, my discipline,

the way I prune and propagate my garden even here.

At other times the pain will come because there’s pain

released that I can only trust with but a few who will not

turn it inward, planting bitter seeds to water with their tears.

You’ll know neglect and disappointment, and you’ll wonder

who you are and why such things are happening and now and then

you’ll wonder if you should have chosen for yourself.

Loss and loneliness will be companions, but however long

they overstay their welcome, know this: the gifts they bring

were purchased at great price, and are as necessary to your

training there as has the rain been here. Your art, your heart,

your very body, and your soul are a piece of music,

but not every ear will like its tone,

and it will take a long, long time before the melody

I wrote a century ago and placed within you will unfold and

finds its truest voice. But little seed,” he said, “I promise this:

When finally you sing the song I give you now, you’ll start out

with a solo, high and hopeful, heavy with a sadness and a passion,

but it won’t be long (or so it seems to me, as I count time)

there will be harmony, The family that I choose for you,

the happenstances all throughout, the broken bones and dreams,

each triumph or defeat, each grain of knowledge you possess

is all a part, the bass line, and the tenor. Here I write fortissimo,

a jarring dissonance resolving with a pause or change of rhythm,

and the piece is difficult but powerful, demanding every ounce of breath

and just as you are sure your voice can never reach the highest note,

a harmony will rise beneath your failing volume, sudden<

strengthening, entwining to perfection to complete

the song of joy I will compose ... now ... just for you.”

And raising up his hand into a sudden breeze, he spread his<

fingers and the seed was gone. He closed his eyes to listen.

There it was. So faint. The music had begun.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017