Menopausal Sex
Mermer Blakeslee
Menopausal Sex
The stream bed’s dry but foxglove
and fireweed still seed in
partial shade.
Texture’s more enduring than color, the old gardener
warned, foliage more satisfying
than flowers.
Our garden no longer swayed by certainty
or harsh afternoon sun—
rather, leaves
of wild raspberry, purple morning haze,
stones worn round by years
of running water.
______________________________________________________
dear vicki
that you left your quick-to-laugh mama and rode
on the bus three hours north in the august heat
to land in our small all-white town as
my mom’s fresh air girl, my fresh air
sister (doing you a favor)
how old were we then, nine, ten?
you were tall, stronger than me
a wide smile, the only black
child for miles around
i’m sorry
i’m sorry i forgot, that i could forget she yelled
“the grease!” in your hair ruining her pillow case
that my best friend’s ma called you a thief
(over that tattered sweater she couldn’t find in a dresser)
that the doll-sized braids your long fingers made
didn’t hold their curl once my hair dried
we couldn’t be curly haired sisters
after all though we slept in the same bed
and told each other our favorite lies
that i never saw till now (50 years
late) waking from a dream
how the feverish muscle
in your chest must’ve charley horsed
stepping off that bus
that i never learned your last name.
____________________________________________________________
for Brandon Bernard
(Executed December 10, 2020. Held alone in a “special confinement unit” with only a tiny window for 23 hours a day, Brandon took up crocheting.)
Here’s my one stitch, you said to the shard of sky
each day for 17 years
each of its 23 hours
(1300 and 80 times 1 minute)
in a box shut closed, crammed
with yarn. And here’s another.
Another. Repetition married to apology.
Your needle threading back forth in out down up then and
now, their deaths your
death—
and who held
your arm? as America
herself injected the poison
then,
now.
Your family not allowed to watch—
daughters two, mother brother sister—
raising your face from the green
gurney, you said, again, I am
sorry, specifically then
also now
Behind the pane of glass:
your same mouth
opens. Your same body. Shakes.
12 minutes.
As America turned her ear away,
one stitch, another
daughters brother mother sister
you made a sweater
(9:27 that night it was declared:
Done.
