Why I Fell at the Folger Shakespeare Library
For decades I’ve told the story:
how, impressed with myself,
I bought foolish shoes
for a big reading in D.C.
How I tossed aside my rule—
Never Wear Shoes You Can’t
Run In—for bone-beige leather-
and-suede slightly-heeled pumps.
I’ve said that’s why I fell
on the intricate parquet stage
freeing poems to fly
and requiring me
on hands and knees
to grope
for
“Salvation”
“Her Words”
“The Bowl”
“Stripped”
before standing
to make my way
to the podium.
I’ve laughed at my first line:
At least that’s over
and mocked my distress
as I peered into dark
and saw my parents had come.
Nine hours they’d driven
from Kentucky
only to witness the sprawl
of an awkward daughter’s pride.
Then, at the reception,
a family friend from my hometown
came from behind, turned me,
and kissed me on the cheek.
“I’m living in Fairfax now,” he said.
“Sorry I was late and stumbled in.”
“You stumbled?” I said, choking
on pinot noir. My mother gave
him a hug. I told the story:
my downfall, my vanity,
those shoes.
The century would be gone
before my mind knew
what this neighbor had begun
when he was twelve
and I was five:
how, his hand
over my mouth, he’d
forced me down. How
he’d split my life. Nobody
will believe you, he’d said
and he was right.
Who was I kidding
disguised as a poet
claiming I had a voice
Just his approach
homing in on the Folger
would fling me to the floor
tear words from my hands
have me groveling
right where he’d left me.
First Ticket
My birth certificate was rejected. I don’t know why the state of Kentucky Department of Vital Records took one look and said This won’t do, but they did. Was it because I’m female but my name is George, so they thought somebody got my gender wrong? (Did somebody get my gender wrong? Who fills that form out anyway? Did I make an error filling out my form, slip a manchild’s spirit into a baby girl’s body?) (There is no womanchild, at least not unless a boy interferes with you when you’re five.) Was my birth certificate interfered with? Vital Records does not know. The copy I have says Not Original although I do my best. It lists no time of birth either, causing astrologers to throw up their hands and say, My stars! Jumping Jupiter!
I asked my mother about this and she said, You were born. What else do you need to know? I need to know why my birth certificate was rejected. Was something wrong with me from Day One? Or is this just a clerical error? Was Dr. Parks drunk? Unaccustomed to sexing babies?
My brother recently discovered that according to the very first step in his paper trail his middle name is not Vernon, like our father, but Vernae. Vernae! Who is playing sloppy chopsticks with our vital statistics? Where do you go for truth or even facts? Not Frankfort. Not the government. Oh, honey, it is snowing again and my tortoiseshell cat is batting at the hands of the clock lying on the desk. She is trying to catch time, while I sit searching for my ticket sixty years into the ride.
Yggdrasil
1
Cornered by myself
at the living room desk
I’m eating chamomile flowers
from a plastic bag.
Over my shoulder
my husband’s at the door
about to take our small son
to the park. “I cannot be
this way,” I tell him.
“I cannot bear it.”
2
In the dining room
I turn to the hall
expecting to pass
between bookcase and closet
and almost collide with
3
return to poetry home