Yellow, white, dirt
\nand hyacinths poking through snow: I am
\nnot quite a year old. Two prepubescent boys
\nbang into walls, tables, each other, anything smaller.
\nBig sister tips her highchair. Mother\u2019s belly
\nswells with the next one. The big man
\nwho swallows all the oxygen
\nis not here,
\nas usual. I have been reading
\nthe library of this place for ten months:
\nthe books of my mother\u2019s eyes and body
\nfeel like my own. I am unable
\nto distinguish my tears from her unshed ones
\nor my clenched belly from her
\ntightly contained fury
\nacted out in the tomes of my brothers: their shouts
\nand fists breaking even air. All the words in this library
\nof flesh
\nfeeling like fire or ice. The way any universe begins
\nor ends.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SITTING ON THE BEACH IN SHORE FOG<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Decades, thick as this mist, rolled on: nothing <\/p>\n Jude Rittenhouse has received a Writer’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center and poetry awards from Glimmer Train Press, Inc., and Poets and Patrons of Chicago. Selections of her poems have also been finalists for Nimrod\u2019s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, including Nimrod International Journal; Tiferet: Literature, Art, & The Creative Spirit; River Oak Review; Newport Review; Her Mark 2005 (Woman Made Gallery, 2005); and The Kali Guide: A Directory of Resources for Women (Zenprint, 2002), among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yellow, white, dirt and hyacinths poking through snow: I am not quite a year old. Two prepubescent boys bang into walls, tables, each other, anything smaller. Big sister tips her highchair. Mother\u2019s belly swells with the next one. The big man who swallows all the oxygen is not here, as usual. I have been reading [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[150],"class_list":["post-2992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-photo-from-hdwpics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2992"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3921,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions\/3921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nquite visible. Muffled lyrics of longings, damp pledges
\nchanted by invisible waves. Sea teaching me.
\n
\nI might have been a singer, moving hearts
\nto dance and weep. Except I arrived with colic: a tiny
\nbundle of screams. Left to cry alone
\n
\nbecause holding my writhing softness
\ncould not comfort my depressed mother. The fog
\nis burning off now. Giving way to gray sky. I might
\n
\nhave played perfect rivers of grace on a silver flute.
\nExcept, in that house with seven others,
\nall of them angry, starving for kindness, I survived
\n
\nby going silent, invisible. I might have danced,
\ngiving and taking joy through my body,
\nexcept for being invaded by grown men
\n
\nwhen I was too young to be
\nbelieved and also too young to hate. I wanted to be
\nan angel carrying the world\u2019s anguish up and away.
\n
\nInstead, I am a chalice to this moment, now, of sun
\nabsolving all the tears held by sky. Warming
\nmiles of sand. Encouraging ocean\u2019s groans and laughter.
\n
\nBlessing all the humans walking one way, then
\nback the other as they search for the perfect shell or rock,
\nhoping for a seastar. For surcease from their daily quest
\n
\nto be more. And, now, sun has made a pocket of blue sky
\njust big enough, like me, to hold
\nand release whatever is required.<\/p>\n