Post by patricia on Mar 4, 2019 3:08:11 GMT
Farnelli Week 2 assignment
I apologize for submitting memoirs in poetry form instead of prose. For some reason, even though I write prose for a living, when I think about memories I have a compulsion to write in verse.
Deep Pink
Patricia Farnelli
That scarlet dress
I wore
to your friend's wedding,
our newborn daughter in my arms.
We stopped and bought it on the way.
I saw it in a thrift shop window.
Nothing fit me
a week after giving birth.
I had to put on tummy control
pantyhose, slip nursing pads
in my bra, and I drenched them
every time our little girl cried.
Your high school pals were checking me out.
The red dress was mercifully loose
in the right places.
my hair was still bleached blonde.
I hid upstairs, trying to nurse,
trying to keep a pink infant from crying,
hiding my still misshapen belly
from the scrutiny of your friends.
The yellow-haired bride wore red too,
or more accurately
flamenco deep pink incarnadine,
a form-fitting sleeveless number
which was, an hour before the wedding,
too tight. She was nervous,
hungover and bloated,
and couldn't get the zipper up.
She stood with it bunched
at her waist
like a flamingo in stilettos.
Female guests clustered
in a dressing room,
offering tummy control
and Rolaids.
So the groom ordered her to fart.
She did and saved the day.
Afterward, we ate strawberries.
They wouldn't last.
But then, neither would we.
Villanelle
Patricia Farnelli
My baby was barely the size of a pea
keeping a secret was my first goal
I was madly in love with it inside me.
I needn't tell yet; it was still part of me,
protecting a pearl, saving a soul.
My baby was barely the size of a pea.
You strummed and sang you wanted to be free,
I harmonized and imagined us whole.
I was madly in love with it inside me.
I fainted; a blood test was there to see,
two heartbeats, an ultrasound, setting a goal
My babies were barely the size of a pea.
Unlikely the terms on which we'd agree
Uneasy the progress, awkward the role
I was madly in love with them inside of me
Sing "whisper words of wisdom let it be"
a lullaby to have and to hold
My babies were barely the size of a pea
And I was madly in love with them inside me.
Corroboration
Patricia Farnelli
My great-grandmother Augusta
saw leprechauns daily.
She shared her high four-poster bed with me,
age three.
I slept on the side against the wall.
When wee green men
danced on her chest of drawers
she would yell for my mother
to bring a broom
and sweep them away.
My great grandmother was thin
and wore cat-eye glasses
and she'd say, "Let's go for a walk
around the block"
and take me by the hand
and we'd walk a few laps
around the dining room table.
Her second childhood and my
early childhood coincided,
so our minds
were in agreement.
We liked tea parties
and doll babies,
nursery rhymes and songs in the dark.
She was weakened
by ovarian cancer
but we'd rush to investigate
when my mother told us there was a draft
in the parlor.
We expected a giraffe.
When the ambulance took her
I spent the first night in that high bed alone
I rolled to spoon with Nanny
and fell hard to the floor
breaking a rib and collar bone
and ending up at the same hospital
but in the Pediatrics ward.
They said she was up
with the angels in heaven
but I determined fairies
came to her rescue instead.
The Sticky Pole and the Boogieman
Patricia Farnelli
Almost every day, when I was three years old
I was sent outside to play
on a rowhouse street in Philly.
Once, I wore a sky-blue party dress
of layered voile
that my grandmother
purchased for me on Frankford Avenue.
(Not my usual brown overalls,
striped polo shirts
and red PF Flyers.)
A child molester who lived next door
noticed I liked to hug a utility pole.
he painted the pole with something tarry,
and when I hugged it I was caught in an embrace
and couldn't let go.
I wet my pants and the little girls spit at me
and I was sure the boogeyman would get me.
I screamed and whimpered
until a lady came outside
and cut me free with her scissors,
then took me by one hand
and knocked on our front door
with me in my undershirt and panties
and half a dress, standing beside a stranger
who pointed to the fabric sticking to the pole.
My parents took me inside and gave me a bath
but no consolation.
We moved out of the city.
My childhood ended and began.
I apologize for submitting memoirs in poetry form instead of prose. For some reason, even though I write prose for a living, when I think about memories I have a compulsion to write in verse.
Deep Pink
Patricia Farnelli
That scarlet dress
I wore
to your friend's wedding,
our newborn daughter in my arms.
We stopped and bought it on the way.
I saw it in a thrift shop window.
Nothing fit me
a week after giving birth.
I had to put on tummy control
pantyhose, slip nursing pads
in my bra, and I drenched them
every time our little girl cried.
Your high school pals were checking me out.
The red dress was mercifully loose
in the right places.
my hair was still bleached blonde.
I hid upstairs, trying to nurse,
trying to keep a pink infant from crying,
hiding my still misshapen belly
from the scrutiny of your friends.
The yellow-haired bride wore red too,
or more accurately
flamenco deep pink incarnadine,
a form-fitting sleeveless number
which was, an hour before the wedding,
too tight. She was nervous,
hungover and bloated,
and couldn't get the zipper up.
She stood with it bunched
at her waist
like a flamingo in stilettos.
Female guests clustered
in a dressing room,
offering tummy control
and Rolaids.
So the groom ordered her to fart.
She did and saved the day.
Afterward, we ate strawberries.
They wouldn't last.
But then, neither would we.
Villanelle
Patricia Farnelli
My baby was barely the size of a pea
keeping a secret was my first goal
I was madly in love with it inside me.
I needn't tell yet; it was still part of me,
protecting a pearl, saving a soul.
My baby was barely the size of a pea.
You strummed and sang you wanted to be free,
I harmonized and imagined us whole.
I was madly in love with it inside me.
I fainted; a blood test was there to see,
two heartbeats, an ultrasound, setting a goal
My babies were barely the size of a pea.
Unlikely the terms on which we'd agree
Uneasy the progress, awkward the role
I was madly in love with them inside of me
Sing "whisper words of wisdom let it be"
a lullaby to have and to hold
My babies were barely the size of a pea
And I was madly in love with them inside me.
Corroboration
Patricia Farnelli
My great-grandmother Augusta
saw leprechauns daily.
She shared her high four-poster bed with me,
age three.
I slept on the side against the wall.
When wee green men
danced on her chest of drawers
she would yell for my mother
to bring a broom
and sweep them away.
My great grandmother was thin
and wore cat-eye glasses
and she'd say, "Let's go for a walk
around the block"
and take me by the hand
and we'd walk a few laps
around the dining room table.
Her second childhood and my
early childhood coincided,
so our minds
were in agreement.
We liked tea parties
and doll babies,
nursery rhymes and songs in the dark.
She was weakened
by ovarian cancer
but we'd rush to investigate
when my mother told us there was a draft
in the parlor.
We expected a giraffe.
When the ambulance took her
I spent the first night in that high bed alone
I rolled to spoon with Nanny
and fell hard to the floor
breaking a rib and collar bone
and ending up at the same hospital
but in the Pediatrics ward.
They said she was up
with the angels in heaven
but I determined fairies
came to her rescue instead.
The Sticky Pole and the Boogieman
Patricia Farnelli
Almost every day, when I was three years old
I was sent outside to play
on a rowhouse street in Philly.
Once, I wore a sky-blue party dress
of layered voile
that my grandmother
purchased for me on Frankford Avenue.
(Not my usual brown overalls,
striped polo shirts
and red PF Flyers.)
A child molester who lived next door
noticed I liked to hug a utility pole.
he painted the pole with something tarry,
and when I hugged it I was caught in an embrace
and couldn't let go.
I wet my pants and the little girls spit at me
and I was sure the boogeyman would get me.
I screamed and whimpered
until a lady came outside
and cut me free with her scissors,
then took me by one hand
and knocked on our front door
with me in my undershirt and panties
and half a dress, standing beside a stranger
who pointed to the fabric sticking to the pole.
My parents took me inside and gave me a bath
but no consolation.
We moved out of the city.
My childhood ended and began.