Three poems by MEGHANN PLUNKETT
Delta
After they married my mother moved
into his house. My father laughs
about the girl she was
wrenched from the city.
He likes to recall her first mistakes:
high heels in the horse barn, press-
on nails while learning to splice
rope, hairspray by a wood stove
the refusal to gut a fish. I don’t remember
these tiny failures; only my mother
chasing possums from our porch steps,
digging oysters out of the shoreline
eating them raw, hiding the love letters
other women would send my father
like she was born to do it.
43 The Paris-American
After they married my mother moved
into his house. My father laughs
about the girl she was
wrenched from the city.
He likes to recall her first mistakes:
high heels in the horse barn, press-
on nails while learning to splice
rope, hairspray by a wood stove
the refusal to gut a fish. I don’t remember
these tiny failures; only my mother
chasing possums from our porch steps,
digging oysters out of the shoreline
eating them raw, hiding the love letters
other women would send my father
like she was born to do it.
43 The Paris-American
The Tool Shed
When you hug me too hard
I wonder about your childhood
games of hide and seek
so small I imagine you were
a knock-kneed tantrum
of blonde hair under the sink
folded into a laundry basket
pressed hard against a door
I can imagine that one place
you discovered no one would look
and the time you waited there
a still body breathing heart-attack
of a child just wanting
to be found.
44 The Paris-American
When you hug me too hard
I wonder about your childhood
games of hide and seek
so small I imagine you were
a knock-kneed tantrum
of blonde hair under the sink
folded into a laundry basket
pressed hard against a door
I can imagine that one place
you discovered no one would look
and the time you waited there
a still body breathing heart-attack
of a child just wanting
to be found.
44 The Paris-American
Water
1.
You can only live as fast
as the water around you,
he tells me with five
knuckles sad around his stout.
He says this and I refuse
to doubt him, convinced already
that the pupil-colored river,
barely breathing out the window,
is responsible for his glacial
speed and the lack of endings
to his stories. He tells me
he is colorblind, "for an Irishman"
he adds, which means he can't see
any shade but the color green–
and everything, he laughs, looks
to be clover-colored to him everything
seems green enough to grow.
2.
Sometimes
I kill a houseplant
on purpose
out of spite
I let it sit on my table
ignoring it for days
and just as the leaves
begin to curl in
on themselves
just as they begin
to parch, begin to husk
and petrify
I sit next to them
with a pitcher full of water
I drink glass after glass
after glass.
3.
My grandmother keeps
her Holy Water by the stove,
on the dresser, by the soap dish,
mixed into the spray bottle
she uses to reprimand the cat.
It is the final ingredient
to every meal she cooks.
She dabs it behind her ears.
4.
There could be, in my mind,
a breed
of superstitious people
who insist
on having plastic surgery
of the palms
in order to make their life
line longer.
These people do not shake hands,
and they never do the dishes,
afraid the water
might wrinkle their childhood.
45 The Paris-American
1.
You can only live as fast
as the water around you,
he tells me with five
knuckles sad around his stout.
He says this and I refuse
to doubt him, convinced already
that the pupil-colored river,
barely breathing out the window,
is responsible for his glacial
speed and the lack of endings
to his stories. He tells me
he is colorblind, "for an Irishman"
he adds, which means he can't see
any shade but the color green–
and everything, he laughs, looks
to be clover-colored to him everything
seems green enough to grow.
2.
Sometimes
I kill a houseplant
on purpose
out of spite
I let it sit on my table
ignoring it for days
and just as the leaves
begin to curl in
on themselves
just as they begin
to parch, begin to husk
and petrify
I sit next to them
with a pitcher full of water
I drink glass after glass
after glass.
3.
My grandmother keeps
her Holy Water by the stove,
on the dresser, by the soap dish,
mixed into the spray bottle
she uses to reprimand the cat.
It is the final ingredient
to every meal she cooks.
She dabs it behind her ears.
4.
There could be, in my mind,
a breed
of superstitious people
who insist
on having plastic surgery
of the palms
in order to make their life
line longer.
These people do not shake hands,
and they never do the dishes,
afraid the water
might wrinkle their childhood.
45 The Paris-American
Meghann Plunkett is a New York City based writer and performer. Her work has been published in national and international literary magazines including Simon & Schuster’s new anthology, Chours. She is a co-founder, producer and performer for the show KissPunchPoem: an official selection at the Chicago Improv Festival, the New York City Poetry Festival, the Hawaii Improv Festival and the Boston Comedy Arts Festival. The show has also been featured at The Encyclopedia Show and The Green Mill in Chicago. She invites you to The Magnet Theater in New York City, every Saturday at 9pm.