I Want to Show You
Poems
By Jane Gilgun
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Jane Gilgun
See other books, children’s stories, and articles by Jane Gilgun on Smashwords.com
Summary
Through poetry, Jane Gilgun tells the story of one woman’s life. Inspired by Carolyn Heilbrun’s Writing a Woman’s Life, Jane writes in imagistic, lyric, and narrative styles to convey the rhythms of a life fully lived that includes the wonder of erotic love, the intrigues of bodily changes, and the warmth and comfort of everyday life.
Contents
Welcome
I Want to Show You
Beginnings
Corn
The Spring Brook
Red Pepper
Cauliflower
Tomatoes
Eyes
Sadie Cummings
Freddie the Gardner
By the Sea
Complex Castration
Love on a Dung Heap
Chipmunk
Now for Me
Young Adulthood
Apple Tree
Water Strider
The War Veteran
Blood
Eggplant
Fishing off Beavertail
Metamorphoses
Poetry Lecture
Suite 1: Nature
Social Work
Debra
Bubble
No Child for Me
A Tear
Fear
Suite 2: Kids
I Didn’t Want to See It
Research on Violence
Minnesota Summer
Listening to a Man Describe a Rape and Murder
Get Off
Sense of Humor
Daddy’s Daughter
Evil Men
Supplication
Kisses
I Will Stare it Down
Pitted Eyes
Raging Bull
Into the Woods
Irish Family History
Breasts
I Love Ants
The Everglades
Dancing with an Angel
Sweet Angel
Minnesota Fall
How Does my Dog Find Meaning?
Crystal Blue
To Ellie
Full Moon with Horses
The Universe Smiled
Contemplating my Knickers
A Source of Amusement
My Little Dope
Mortality
9.12.01
Who Needs You?
Google on Dark Days
Suite 3: Renewal
Erotic Love
I’m Back, God
Maxine Kumin Makes Me Cry
I Love You, Jack
The Newness of Old
Heaven
Death was at my Right Shoulder
About the Author
About this Book
I Want to Show You
I want to show you
the Mississippi in the October light
the monarch butterflies
turning the goldenrod bronze
the apple trees in the back yard
dappled in sunlight
the baby angelfish on the swordtail plant
pappa catching them when they tumble off
and spitting them back two or three at a time
my horse prancing in the glow of the low-set sun
Beginnings
Corn
Eating corn always seemed so intimate,
buttering it, salting it,
biting off kernels in neat rows.
I think of smiles when I think of corn.
I think I smile when I eat corn,
not mindful if yellow specks
stick to cheeks or catch on teeth.
I eat it alone or with close friends and family
Except once, at Bread Loaf where
I ate it with three hundred strangers in a dining hall
I felt self-conscious, as if violating something.
I asked my mother why
she serves corn on my birthday.
She said she thought I knew.
She was eating corn in the backyard
when she went into labor with me.
My father was drying his athlete’s feet in the sun.
He couldn’t get his shoes on.
My aunt drove her to the hospital.
I was born five hours later.
The Spring Brook
I heard before I saw
the brook high with spring rain
white caps danced
on tannin-stained water.
The bank gave beneath me
the water pulled me under,
not scared but curious about what was next,
my mouth engorged with water.
A downed tree blocked my passage.
I hauled myself out,
howled home in my underpants.
Sunsuit moved on without me.
Daddy dropped his rake,
ran to met me,
picked me up,
and held me close.
Red Pepper
It gleamed in the sun.
I picked it and took a bite.
Crunchy, tangy, delicious until
my mouth burned with an intensity
only children know.
I ran home screaming, “Mommy.”
My mother swooped down the stairs,
her white robe open,
she wet from the bath,
showing her shocking black triangle.
She kneeled before me, big eyes shining,
What did you eat?
Your lips are swollen
the size of cucumbers.
She bathed my mouth with ice cubes,
rocked me in her arms,
kissed the top of my head.
I snuggled deep.
As the years moved on,
I warmed to the memory of her embrace
and froze in fear of that black triangle
and what it meant for her,
for me,
worried I would grow one.
Cauliflower
Big green leaves cut blunt
better to show white face
bumpy with tiny craters
one cauliflower stands out
from all the rest.
I show it to my aunt
who likes it, too.
She cuts it from its stem
breaks it into chunks
bakes it with garlic, cream, and cheese
serves it at Thanksgiving dinner.
I decline the dish.
Tomatoes
Tom Smiley, the town drunk,
must’ve thought himself a clever fellow,
sneaking through the woods on his way to the bar,
leaving behind the vine-covered cottage
where he lived with his wife and kids
who begged him not to drink.
Silent as a cheetah, he stole in on us small kids
playing in the woods, scaring us,
excusing himself with silent smile and whiskey breath
and slinking noiselessly away.
His children turned out well,
son superintendent of schools,
daughter superior of her order,
Tom dead of cirrhosis,
widow dead behind the green of the viney cottage.
Once I saw Tom emerge from the woods,
go to our garden,
pick tomatoes,
put them in a paper sack,
knock on our back door,
ask my mother if she would like to buy
some nice plump tomatoes.
She said no.
I never told on Tom till now.
I don’t know why.
Eyes
I see the insane eyes of a mad man.
They’re staring, won’t stop staring at me.
I cry in terror.
The beams of those eyes
melt me like wax.
I feel distorted,
want to go somewhere safe.
I shut my eyes.
The eyes are still there, staring,
the eyes of a mad man.
I’m staring into the eyes of a horse,
big, round, soft eyes.
I see my face in those eyes.
They reflect me back to myself
like a fun house mirror.
My face is long and skinny,
my eyes deep points,
my mouth short,
lips fat,
and I’m smiling.
The horse is not mad.
Sadie Cummings
She snorted and pranced
when her hooves touched the sand
and we’re off
with me in a two-point
and her in full gallop
through shallow water
the spray salting my face
the two of us in raucous rhythm.
We would have gone on forever.
The rocks at the seawall forced a halt.
She died at the track
put down after she broke her leg trying.
Freddie the Gardener
Freddie the gardener fondled my breasts.
little things they were, barely there at all.
He slipped his dirty hands under my shirt
and rubbed, tongue rolling around in his mouth.
I was paralyzed like a rabbit in a snare,
with the hunter above rifle cocked and about to shoot.
Later, I overheard my daddy say,
That Freddie is light-fingered.
I knew what he meant.
I wanted to say,
No, he’s not.
By the Sea
By a heart-shaped stone of the sea
lay a dead starfish.
A finger points to it,
washed in a tidal pool.
Complex Castration
It’s possible to pull a horse’s muzzle out,
catch it on a loop of chain attached to a pole,
turn until the teeth show,
until the horse twists,
until the horse falls to the floor.
Then it’s possible for three strong men
to hold his hind legs
while the vet cuts the scrotum
and removes the balls.
It’s also possible that the horse will fight
and thrash until the vet says,
Loosen the chain.
Let him up, boys,
when there is one more ball left
to cut out.
John Boy fought like that
for his one last ball.
Until he was two, I never knew
whether to call him a stud or a gelding.
He had the gelding’s habit
of hanging his shaft loose as a sausage,
but he had the fire in the eye
of a stallion.
In his third summer,
I watched him tear grass close to the roots.
He looked so content,
I chewed some grass myself.
Tommy didn’t see me
as he whacked John Boy
on the loose-hanging penis.
I wondered if that would affect his fertility.
Then I knew it didn’t matter.
The vet was coming for the other ball.
This time he knocked John out with a shot to his neck,
recut the scrotum,
inserted blunt, serrated scissors
that crunched as they crushed the spermatic cord.
He reached in and grabbed.
He held the dripping mass high in the air,
then threw it in a basket
of straw and broken manure balls.
The basket and ball stayed there for days.
A crust formed.
Then, a German Shepherd wolfed it down.
He licked his teeth and muzzle.
It seemed to have been a tasty morsel.
Love on a Dung Heap
I almost lost my virginity when I was thirteen
when I worked for a veterinarian
who also hired Joe
who shaved at nine.
(And I imagined developed early elsewhere.)
One hot day, I wore shorts to work,
and Joe picked me up with a roar,
(And I felt warm and curious.)
and carried me to the horse manure pile.
He threw me down and left.
The dung heap was warm and full of straw.
I lay there wondering what I’d missed.
Chipmunk
I see the love in his eyes
scamper away like a chipmunk.
He scratches the back of his head
looks down and turns away.
Now for Me
Love catches me by surprise
setting off voices of angels
who smile and lower their eyes
their music lifts me
sounds I’ve heard before
playing for someone else
and now for me
Womanhood
Apple Tree
The apple tree stood next to the stonewall
that enclosed the field of thirty acres
where roamed and grazed thirty horses
who dozed under the tree as a shield
against the high summer sun so much
they wore away the grass and created dust
in which they rolled to scratch their backs.
From their backs I counted the miles
by adding the number of times
I passed the tree
on the quarter-mile track around the field.
I wonder now if the tree is still there,
the sun burning its leaves silver in summer
and its apples red in the fall.
I wonder if the apples drop off the tree
and mimic the horse droppings
ignored as the apples
that the horses didn’t eat.
I wonder if the bark is still rough and dark
as if decades of rain had worn wandering rives.
I wonder if the tree still opens its branches
like Hercules proclaiming joy in his strength.
I wonder if those arms that embrace the sky
still give me a place to sit and watch
thirty horses on thirty acres
feeding, frolicking,
and scratching their backs.
Water Strider
Six strider legs dimple
the surface of a freshwater pond.
A black beetle falls
from the leaf of a swamp willow.
Ripples reach receptors in strider legs
that skate to the struggling mite.
Insect jaws crush beetle shell,
and the surface of the pond is quiet again.
The War Veteran
He lay like a slug in the woods,
wrapped in a state-issue blanket,
head a dying sunflower,
brown streaks for features,
hair a brittle crown,
oak leaves lying lightly around him.
Out for a walk in the woods,
I’ve stumbled onto a hobo haven.
He sits up with a jerk like the tin man,
leaves fluttering and rustling around him.
We stare and remember.
He’s my ex-lover, alcoholic.
He’d been an honor student in college,
voted most handsome, most likely to succeed,
a fighter pilot in Nam,
a law school dropout,
a disinherited son.
Once in a drunken monologue he told me
of strafing villages, flying low,
women and children running, stumbling, screaming,
falling. “I mowed them down, ratta tat tat,”
he shouted, spit on his tongue and lips,
eyes rolling like marbles in a cup.
I stayed with him until
I could no longer bear it,
he never ceasing to call,
once on Thanksgiving evening,
he drunk, I lying under a blanket
I paid for myself.
I hung up without returning his hello.
I run from him, but he follows.
Blood
I really don’t mind
that half my underpants are stained brown
with old blood. I really don’t mind
that my Sealy Posturpedic Extra Firm
was christened crimson two months
after I bought it. I really don’t mind
when early in the morning
groggy in bed
I dip my hands where my mother said “Don’t touch”
to find out why it feels so full
and my fingers come up red,
black under the fingernails.
I did mind today, though, after a run,
when I saw the furry gray crotch
of my sweat pants
brushed lightly bronze.
In the shower, out flowed a river of red,
food from my womb, which this month must’ve
been thick with nourishing cells,
a waiting, fertile bed
for a tiny strawberry of cells
that could have been my child
had I allowed his sperm to touch my egg
in mid-flight down the tube.
Eggplant
Hanging alone in the late September green
of its own vines,
the eggplant looks familiar.
Why it’s my womb,
bruised purple and upside down.
Suspended.
Fishing Off Beavertail
I
In October the waves off Beavertail
break far out in the bay and roll slowly
forward into the mantle of white water
that churns against the coastal ledge.
They smash against the sandstone rocks,
rush out in swirls and eddies
to meet the next breaking wave that too ends
in a crash and spray of salt water.
An oil storage tank,
humpbacked on four legs
stands in silhouette
against the purple haze of the horizon.
A woman is the lone fisher today.
She stands on the rocks, pole against belly,
moving back as each successive wave
moves in on her.
In with the tide come bass.
One strikes her lure,
pulling line off reel,
bending her varnished pole.
She lets out line and reels it in,
all in rhythm with the fish.
From the foam a bass emerges,
writhing and twisting at the end of the line,
slaps hard against the rocks,
mouth opening, shutting.
She steps on it to keep it still,
tears hook from throat,
jagged flesh hangs out of mouth.
Eyes that can’t see seem to.
A saw-tooth knife parts the scales
that show white below fluttering gills.
Those who take fish gaff them.
Alive they break creels.
Fighting a pull to throw the fish
back into the sea, she throws it
in the creel instead, says, “It’s been
a long time since I’ve eaten fresh fish.”
II
The dying marsh grass and hazy sky
keep a stillness for her over the roar of waves.
Under the changeless sky,
the rhythm and tone of sea
seem exactly what they were the first time
she came this way.
At ten, she was a much a part of the coast
as the seagulls screeching overhead,
and as unaware as they
of her natural oneness with the sea.
Carrying lunch in brown bag,
walking five miles down the rocky coast,
leaving once to cross green lawns
and peer in mansion windows.
She saw chairs and tables, spider-like,
humped in isolation, velvet rooms.
Children like her
were not allowed in those rooms.
Frightened, she returned to rocks,
got wet feet, played with waves,
fed her lunch to hungry fish,
dared them to take her away.
III
At eighteen, she left her coastal town
for education, higher education,
with people of sophistication
and long white hairless faces.
She learned words: pedophilia, aphasia,
reaction formation, incest, homosexuality,
Oedipus complex, separation anxiety,
rejection, depression, obsession, regression.
All that was natural and kind to her
turned to tattoos on a dead man’s chest,
to leers on faces of men who chase her
down the Seine, their pale tall pricks in hand.
How big’s the smile? How firm’s
the handshake? Does he like me?
Does he love me?
If he doesn’t, I will die.
Finally, he didn’t love her.
Her best friend died.
IV
Alone, once more with the sea,
standing on rocks, fishing, gaffing,
wondering who’d tell her how to prepare
fish stuffing.
Someday she won’t move away
from the incoming tide
but let the tide pull her
into the ceaseless waves.
She drops pole and creel,
takes a few steps, returns for the fish,
slides down the rocks
and into the sea.
Metamorphosis
Disguised in full-length apron
pushing a roller pin
the everyday woman
was not the mother
I saw naked on high
spreading her arms
breasts lifted
waist flowing
into hips and thighs
the center dark
mysterious terrifying
to my six year-old self.
I ran from her and myself
until I found me in her
and you in me.
Poetry Lecture
The University Extension reaches
the chem lab of North Providence High School
where we sit on wooden stools, smoking cigarettes
while the gas jets seem shut
and the beakers full of yellow liquid
do not explode.
I study the periodic table
while the prof tells us
we must devour poetry
tear it limb from limb
crunch its bones
drink its blood
eat its flesh
until the ink dribbles out
of the corner of our mouths.
He must have periodontal disease.
He has one eye tooth
and four bottom teeth that quiver.
He equates the study of poetry
with knowing how to conduct oneself
in a fine restaurant.
I lean my head on the slate table
look between my legs
and there on the seat
some high school student
had etched “eat me.”
Suite 1: Nature
I
We watch each other,
three horses, the fireflies, and me.
The crickets peep.
II
The rhododendron
bow over the frozen pond
while frogs sleep beneath.
III
An abandoned brick shed
casts a shadow
in the green woods.
IV
A widow wears her mourning veil.
Clouds pass by
A full moon.
V
Above the rose gray mare
slips the rose gray moon.
Fireflies wink. God’s eyes.
Social Work
The voices in this section are those of clients or other social workers.
Debra
Someone told me Debra
has been asked by her boyfriend
to become a prostitute.
Debra supposedly is considering
this plan. I spoke to Debra
regarding her plans for the future.
Debra said she told her boyfriend,
now her ex-boyfriend, she really doesn’t
want to go into that line of work.
I congratulated Debra on her maturity
and told her she’s really working hard
making some kind of future for herself.
I don’t understand why Debra
got up and left the room.
Bubble
My daughter’s pregnant,
twenty-one, not married.
The father’s married.
She’s thrilled.
When I was twenty-one,
I wasn’t married.
I did not marry
through five pregnancies and births.
I vowed my kids would
have it different from me.
I don’t want her to have it.
I don’t want to tell her.
I can’t help her support it.
I don’t want to burst her bubble.
No Child For Me
Paula had a neck collar on.
Her face was gray and lined.
Moving closer, I saw she wore
a beige turtle neck sweater.
A kid in my caseload died
over the weekend, she said.
Subdural hematoma.
I should have known.
I should have taken the kid
from his parents sooner,
but I decided to wait
for a court hearing.
I could have gotten one sooner,
tell the judge it’s an emergency,
but my supervisor said wait,
the agency attorney said wait,
the doctor said wait. These are
old bruises. There is no danger.
I should have known
when I talked to the father.
I think he did it.
He’s a kid, out of control.
I knew it, but I waited.
I was wrong. The kid’s dead.
Now I think there’s no child for me.
There’s no child for me.
A Tear
I feel like a robot, she said.
I want to talk about my sorrow,
but I feel so mechanical.
She sat silent.
She held a cigarette in her left hand.
I watched the ash grow and arch downward.
As I was about to dry,
as she was about to cry,
the ash fell to the floor and shattered.
A tear.
Fear
I want to face the fear
that losing him sucks from me
caress it
have it lie down beside me
fall asleep
Body Works
Thanks forever that his body works
I would have exploded imploded
with desire to touch
galloping in place screaming
I wanted to wrap myself in him
flesh to flesh
bone to bone
I wanted him
screaming
Suite 2: Kids
I
A toddler burps and says,
“Thank you,” when his mother asks
“What do you say?”
A six year-old sings
“Happy Birthday” to her mother
lying dead on the kitchen floor.
II
I don’t like you, Bernie, a kid says laughing.
Why? What did I do?
Bernie puts his thumb in his mouth,
walks in circles, says, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Bernie runs up to two little boys.
I love you, he says.
The boys grin and turn away.
III
Mom, I have a hair.
Where is it?
She points to her pubic area.
I can’t find it.
Let’s get a flash light.
Sure enough, there it is,
alone on that gentle mound.
My nine year-old daughter,
so happy to be growing up.
I wasn’t like that.
A few weeks later: Mom,
I have another hair.
I Didn’t Want To See It
I wasn’t looking for it
didn’t want to see it
I hadn’t seen it
in a long, long time
A tree with almond-shaped leaves
grape bunches of white flowers
tumbling down arching branches
like a weeping willow
drenched in the mist
of a spring morning
I resist, then yield
to beauty
imposing itself on my loneliness
Research on Violence
Midsummer
Jimmy drinks the lemonade
straight out of the pitcher.
It tastes so good to him.
It trickles over his chin
and streaks the brown rings of his neck.
Dirty fingerprints on the pitcher
nearly empty.
He wipes them off,
fills it with water,
puts it where he found it.
Back in the garden
he scrapes weeds from the hard earth,
dust in mouth and nose.
The sun melts into the sky.
Someone roars,
Who drank the lemonade?
I was saving it for supper.
Jimmy keeps on hoeing.
Sari did, he said.
Listening to a Man
Describe Rape and Murder
A bullet hole appeared between his brows
while I sat there listening,
as he described the murder
and post-mortem rape of a dorm mate:
I did not want to strangulate her.
I only wanted to render her unconscious
so I could rape her.
From deep within
my hidden self had fired the shot
that put the bullet there.
I had not moved.
nor had I imagined doing this.
It happened without my conscious will,
as real as any action I have ever actually taken.
The next time I saw him
he said, I felt you despised me the last time we talked.
Get Off
Get off my back,
you leech,
you bear claws,
mouth around my head,
teeth drawing blood
like a crown.
Get down.
Go away.
Cloying, cloven-footed,
mincing, prancing,
the big bad wolf,
wanting it all,
overpowering with rabid breath,
clawing, controlling,
spitting in my face,
want, want, want,
need, need, need.
What you want I cannot give.
I’m tired of your face in mine,
sucking my breath,
pushing my head under water,
standing on my shoulders
while I drown.
Get off.
Swim on your own.
Leave me alone.
Sense of Humor
I lost
my sense
of humor
when I looked
into the eyes
of a rapist.
I found it
in my dog
asleep
on her back
in the sun.
Daddy’s Daughter
I can’t remember
what I did yesterday
but I can’t forget
that I am your daughter,
you drunken bum, who staggered home
stinking of half-digested beer,
swaying like a tree stripped of bark,
roots rotted in musty soil.
You are the worm in my heart,
the parasite in my gut,
reminding me
of what matters
and how hard it can be to get to it.