Online Poetry

Holding Bread

So Much the Stronger

Sara's Fruit

UFOS

21 MAY 1979

UFOS

In those first years after we lost Jack
People started seeing flying saucers
Everywhere it seemed.  It made the news
Most every week.  The Air Force said no
And we had no reason, yet, to disbelieve
Our leaders and our military
But there were so many people
Who saw lights in the sky
At school a certain set of bells
Meant scuttle underneath your desk
And put your arms across your eyes
Don't look until the blast is over
Maybe something had been set loose
That we weren't ready to hear about

My mama, orphaned daughter from a long line
Of ravenous, dirt-bound, sign-seeking women
Was on it right away.   After dinner that summer
She'd drag us out into the night
Sitting in metal chairs on Bermuda grass
Our house at the edge of a small town
Without street lights or drive-throughs
The dark was moist and sat on us gravid
I didn't want to go out in that yard
Open to the heavens, sitting ducks
I didn't want to see one, but Mama did
And it was worse to wait alone in the house
Away from the eager humor in her voice
The reassuring match flare as she began
Another cigarette.  Jack was gone, but she
Had not given up.   Not yet

Any star will move if you stare at it long enough 

If I don't tell you these things
No one else will.  She is dead, they are
All dead one way or another except
For me.   And it isn't just that I need
To tell it on -- though that is good enough
If I have found a way to unstop my mouth
That's good enough -- but even in a short
And whitebread story such as this
There are things you need to hear
Things you have lived without until now

©  Maggie Jochild

24 February 2004, 2 p.m