HELLO WALL
Can we talk? I’ve been told we have a lot in common.
My husband always said talking to me was just like
talking to you, and you must know, he was always right.
I’m curious: did he begin with a pointing finger and the question,
“Do you know what your problem is?” Did you try to explain?
Did it end by him shaking his head and walking away?
I am guessing from your silence, you didn’t know what to do, either.
Did you spend half your day mulling over all those problems of yours,
trying to defend your indefensible self?
It’s difficult to talk about, isn’t it? You could never quite figure out which
part was yours and which was his. It kind of made you want to build
a wall around yourself, didn’t it?
—from Rattle #41, Fall 2013
Tribute to Single Parent Poets
__________
Gloria Parker: “My first poems … I was in my early twenties and wrote in the dark. It almost seemed like they were dictated to me. I’d wake and without turning on a light, grab the pen and pad from my night stand and write what I’d ‘heard’ while asleep. I’d spend most of the next day trying to decipher words written in slanted lines over one another, a tedious and not always successful process. I am/was a single parent of two sons. My husband and I separated twenty-plus years ago, when both boys were in elementary school.”
