What’s the Matter with You?

I’m in the ocean town Cambria,
excited to walk and see sights
when a man I’ve never seen
appears with a leashed Chihuahua.
He chooses to stomp on my life:

What’s the matter with you—he yells,
a hat and gloves on this nice day?

He wakes the rage of the child
who lived with that question

and I turn from a pleasant
middle-aged woman into
a Medusa, releasing vipers,
their fangs spewing venom,
and stone frozen, this man stands
beside his petrified pet, while
fifty years of stored tantrums
smash him to smithereens.

When he’s pulverized to dust,
I smile and take that walk.

I like poems that change history.

 

 

by Jeanie Greensfelder Psychologist, poet, Hospice of SLO volunteer Author: Biting The Apple Available through Amazon.com

Age Fifteen: First Job

I enter the Regal movie house
without buying a ticket
for now I’m an usher
paid seventy-five cents an hour.

In the room marked Private
I change into a royal-blue uniform.
At the mirror, I adjust my short skirt
ruffled jacket and pill box hat, admiring
the costume that hides me from me.

Knighted with authority,
I keep kids quiet during matinees
as once I was hushed.
In the evening I lead adults
through the dark, shining my light
until they’re safe in their seats, and
when the film ends and the curtain closes,
I’m there to wish them a good night.

Back in the room marked Private
I hang up my power
slip into shorts and tee
and note a new pimple in the mirror—
I’m back to being me.

 

Encounter

A marmalade cat stalks birds
in weeds the shade of lion’s mane.
When she sees me seeing her
we’re in the savannah—
she’s her cousin, I’m her prey.