Tag: escape

Harbor Woman

Sarah Russell8 Comments

The third poem published in the wonderful Rusty Truck this week.

Harbor Woman

She takes them in — the peddler,
minstrel, gypsy. Townsfolk speak
in wanton whispers, how she beds
each one. They rebuke their budding
daughters who mime her loose-hipped
stroll. Addled by her lustered hair, full lips,
boys are whipped for where their hands go
in the night. But the same wives who beat
their sons, go in darkness for her herbs
so they will bleed again. Men, lured by musk
and breasts that push beneath her shawl,
dream her while astride those dowdy wives,
conjure her cries in their grinding. Beside
her hearth, sojourners tell of war and greed
and mutiny, of realms where she could dance
for kings, wear silks, call maids to brush her hair.
They tempt her to break free, but she knows
her place is here, knows she is the wellspring
of sweet water for parched village tongues.

Hegira

Sarah Russell21 Comments

Those dream-filled summer nights,
a wail, anguished as a banshee,
pierced the rusty screen.
Then the rhythmic clatter grew
until the bed and I would tremble.

Let me come too, I whispered,
but it never heard,
or didn’t understand,
or didn’t care about a little girl
and a gallant torn-eared bear.

The rumbling, shaking wraith
moved on, its cry waning to an echo,
my heartbeat clinging to the cadence
of away from here, away from
here, away

– Sarah Russell
First published in Black Poppy Review

D NER

Her mama said she was uppity.

Sarah Russell33 Comments

Wish it had been the R that fell, she thought. Then it would say DINE, like the food was good, like it was more than runny eggs and meatloaf. But it was the I, and everyone called it the DEE-ner, like some hillbilly joint. Jake said it gave the place character, didn’t even know where the I had blown to after all these years.

She hated waiting tables. Her mama said she was uppity. “Worst thing we did was name you Chelsea after that foreign place,” her mama said. “You get off your high horse and make peace with staying here.” But she never would. Never! She’d get a little money ahead and clear out. Go where Chelsea was an OK name, and DINE was what folks did, and tips were more than a quarter.

“You gonna stub that smoke and get back to work? I ain’t paying you to be on break all day.”

“When you gonna put the I back, Jake?”

“No time soon, Chelsea girl. No time soon.”

– Sarah Russell
First published in Rusty Truck