writing – Sarah Stoltzfus Allen

Middle-ish Age

or, Sonnet 2, if Old Bill Shakes had Considered Reality

When forty winters crown my aging head
and crow’s feet line the smile around my eyes,
my youth will start its journey down the drain,
and I don’t care who knows that I am old.
And if you ask me where my beauty lies
and where the perk of youth has run off to,
I’ll pull my glasses down my nose and free
the pent-up truth I’ve kept behind my teeth:
we’re sold the lie that beauty should endure
without a single dimple on our skin,
but beauty lies in pure embodiment
of simple joy in every season spent.
I do not covet spring, its blooming rose,
I’m well content in autumn’s golden clothes.

***

I have been responding to and rewriting Shakespeare’s sonnets as a writing exercise. It’s been challenging and fun and makes me feel a bit…uh…conceited (is that the right word?). Anyway, I hope you love it! Read the original Sonnet 2 here.

Augury

I wasn’t looking for witchy woo-woo
answers to life’s questions
in the parking lot of the Double Kwik
gas station on my way home from work,

but it was there:
shining navy blue in the evening sun,
a single crow pecked at trash
that hadn’t made it to the proper receptacle.

I searched the rest of the parking lot,
looking for another crow because everyone
knows that “one for sorrow”
is always a bad omen.

After ten minutes standing in sweltering, July air,
I saw it perched on the sign advertising $3.89
a gallon for unleaded gas and $4.99 for diesel,
“two for mirth” making my muscles relax.

It flew down to its partner and I knew right then
the second crow hadn’t replaced the first omen.
Sorrow is here with me, and I think it plans
to stick around awhile.

But soon mirth will be back.
She hasn’t deserted me to forever black days,
I just need to look up
and be patient.

Multivitamin

I’m forty years old
and my multivitamin is the best part
of my entire day.

Well, that’s probably not exactly true.
I also really like the first sip of coffee,
the way I can see a cardinal at my bird feeder
as soon as I open my eyes in the morning,
and the way the sun filters through the curtains
in the evenings and makes my whole bed a golden nest.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the smiles
I still get from my boys when I get home,
the jangling of ice in my favorite water cup,
and text messages from friends.

But that multivitamin?
It tastes like childhood:
sour fruit snack gummies and books
read by flashlight well past bedtime,
mouth watering stares into bins of rainbow
colored candies that were scooped into brown
paper bags that I clutched in my little girl hands
and savored over every day of our summer vacation,
and standing in the candy aisle with my granny
while she picked out her favorite sugar free gum
and then let me pick out my favorite
sugar bursting chewy sweet.

I didn’t realize when I turned forty that I would try
to relive all those favorite childhood things every morning,
but here we are:
giving up most of the super sugary treats in favor
of more grownup needs and taste buds,
trying to take care of an aging body
that now has a laundry list of medical diagnoses,
and whining about my liney eyes.

But that multivitamin,
suggested by doctors to help my body do
what it is supposed to do?
Well, it may not keep me young, but it’s an honest
choice to keep going and to make sure
the girl I used to be sees all our
dreams come true.

Dirty Laundry

You are grass-stained knees
and ketchup drips on church pants,
primary colored paint splashes on
school uniforms and socks that smell
like only little boy feet can smell,

red wine on a favorite blouse,
amorous stains on bed sheets,
sweat and motor oil soaked into
t-shirt cotton,
the good towels that have cleaned up
pirate bath time adventures.

You are dirt and love and tears,
blood and water mixing,
flowing into all things new.

@ssapoetry
You can hold this poem in your very own hands by preording my chapbook, The Darks and the Lights: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-darks-and-the-lights-by-sarah-stoltzfus-allen/ #poetry #poem #carpoetry #morning #fyp #poetrytok #writing #poetrylover #poet #poetrystatus #dirtylaundry
♬ original sound – Sarah Stoltzfus Allen

I hope you enjoyed this poem from my upcoming book, The Darks and the Lights. And I really hope you remember that beautiful things can be found in the ordinary. I really hope Tuesday is being nice. Try and make it a good one!

Make sure you preorder your very own copy and lock in that discounted rate!

Arty Bollocks

Listen, I’m typically a no nonsense
kind of girl. I sit down to write a poem,
and I write a poem.
I think about the syllables and form.
I decide that dancing through dandelions
is definitely too much alliteration.
I know when to show and when to tell,
the words swirling into images for the reader.

I don’t have a specific muse,
the will to write is cultivated time
that I have carved into my daily life.
I write because it is the time to write.

But today?
Today the words don’t feel like special friends.
They feel all wrong,
disjointed and I can’t find a good enjambment
if my life depended on it.

Everything is prose that is
broken with line breaks in all th
e wrong places. And I can’t seem to
make a damn thing make sense.

If you came here looking for a good poem,
I am sorry to disappoint.

Maybe someone who feels the words
like a life force and has seen Kalliope
in her natural habitat will do a better job.
If you want directions to their place,
just ask.

A Miracle

It’s not often that there is quiet.
There is the ever-present hum of light fixtures,
a ceiling fan, the noise of whatever video
is playing on whatever device is currently
in the hands of my children,
the sound of my breathing, my heartbeat
in my ears, the tick of the antique clock
on my dresser, my boys’ voices,
a sink turning on, the unbalanced washing machine,
the thunk of a shutter that flaps in the wind,
the flushing toilet, and the clink of marbles
on the wooden marble run.

And that’s just the external input to my ears and brain.

Internally there is the ongoing monologue leftover
from childhood about sitting up straight
and how ladies do things completely different
to the way I do things, a scream of pain,
talking through the best ways to help my boys
succeed at school, me reminding myself
that my house burning down wouldn’t be the end of the world,
pictures for poems, long strings of words
that don’t make sense, filing cabinets
full of memories and things I need to remember,
what I should have said in an argument five years ago,
and for some reason a dripping faucet.

And people wonder why I want to wear noise cancelling
headphones every minute of every day,
why I cancel plans at the last minute
or don’t even make plans at all.
It’s a miracle I can sift through all of that
for this mediocre poem.

So if you see me with my headphones,
don’t ask me what I’m listening to.
I’m probably just trying to find
a moment of peace.

Coffee Creamer

I wasn’t looking, and she added too much creamer.
I drank the coffee anyway,
the sweet liquid coating

my teeth and tongue with a layer
of slick sugar I wouldn’t be able to rid
myself of without a thorough brushing.

Her forearms tensed and flexed
as she balled her nightgown in her fists
and in her lap trying to hide the anxiety,

and I wondered how we had come to this place:
the serving coffee and being anxious
and not meeting each other’s gaze.

We need to talk, she said,
just as I was standing to leave.

I sat back down and waited.

Summer Jewels

She could often be found
admiring the fruits of her labor
in her fully stocked pantry –
mason jars of green beans, corn,
tomato juice, tomato sauce, various soups.
She adjusted their stacked-up lines,
shining jewels in summer colors
waiting to be enjoyed once the cold came in.

Six months after my granny died,
I watched my mother from her kitchen table,
She held the last of the green beans,
having rationed the last ten jars,
knowing that when they were gone
there would be no replacement beans
coming this summer.

Opening the jar, she let tears fall.
Silvery jewels of grief slipping silently
down her cheeks and onto her apron.
She held them up to her nose,
and then quickly dumped them
into the pot on the stove.

The last of the summer jewels
graced our Sunday lunch plates
for a final time.

Summer Tomatoes

Slicing summer tomatoes in a sleepy kitchen,
she hummed something that could
have been a hundred years old
or a song that played last night on the radio.
Golden waves obscured her face,
and I couldn’t see the smile I knew was there.
Couldn’t see the way her lips turned down
at the corners in delightful, exquisite mischief.

Dripping fingers arranged thick slices
on a plate too formal for this moment,
the crunch of salt and pepper grinders
breaking the silent, ardent air.

When she tipped her head back, popped
a ruby half-slice between her kiss-swollen lips
I couldn’t help but make my way to her.
I caught her smile then, a laughing look that said
every word my heart needed, and then some.
Soft curves fit against all my angles
and I wanted summer tomatoes,
the press of her warm, sleep-quiet body against mine
for the rest of my life.

Goldenrod and Ironweed

Why are you crying, my love?

She wiped her eyes,
sniffled her nose,
and lifted her gaze to the window
above the sink.

The goldenrod and ironweed are blooming,
she said, slipping her hands into soapy water.
The earth is settling her melancholy
deep into my bones,
unfurling her funeral flowers alongside
roads and in the low, wet places of the hills,
one last majestic sight
before fading into rust and gold.

One last burst of color to hold
during the long, bleak of winter.

That is the most poetic way I have ever heard
anyone describe their allergies, my love.