Two Poems by Lisa J. Parker

Prevarication

At the edge of yard
I watched blackberry vines for readiness,
pushed against nascent buds as red to purple to black,
vines inching taller against their cling and twine around
silvery anchor cable on the telephone pole.

Mama warned of electrocution when she caught me
shimmying half its length toward a tangled kite, told me
my hands could be burned clear off, I might end up
in a wheelchair like cousin Jimmy
who worked for Dominion Power and got thrown 50 feet
to the ground where the imprint of his body
burned into the grass.

I wondered what wild thing could make a blackberry
stronger than a man, ran my fingers against vines until
they touched cable, pressed my luck
until I grabbed the whole cable in my fist, held it
tighter with each passing minute until slowly the fallacy
of my mother's warning became clear
and I walked bowl after bowl
of blackberries in to her, never another thing mentioned,
even years later, the countless syrups and preserves
she spooned or spread over bread she pushed
into my mouth when I was too sick to feed myself,
her careful conservation the only thing that could sustain me.

Hillbilly Transplant Writes "Where I’m From" Exercise With Imposter Narrative

City girl, Brooklyn-born, rough raised
by loud women cursing store-bought pickles,
and men who couldn't carry their own weight,
by subway tunnels where I learned to hold my breath
and perfect the hasty walk-not-run when rats
hugged the tile walls of transfers between Prospect Park
and Brighton Beach, or not-quite-men
proved themselves to each other with catalogs
of come-ons as I passed.

I am summer drought brazen-cracking the hydrants,
standing in the sting of its water until
my jeans adhered to me and the waves of heat
finally rolled off.

I am kitchen windows sweating streaks all year long,
neighborhood Babushkas who cooked constantly, sour cherry jams,
pickled garlic, my Ukrainian neighbor whose chewy black breads
I teethed on, her sister whose quick clap under my chin
taught me early to say spasiba to everything no matter how small I was,
no ingrates tolerated in the swarm of warm aprons, these women
who guarded the gates to every doughy, salty treat of my childhood.

I am backseat of the movies at Sheepshead Bay,
learning the indelicate truth of neighborhood boys.
I am feet whose callouses came early, concrete
and hard grass, 5th floor walk-up, my Latvian neighbor
who would only paint my nails if I let her take a razor
to my heels, the pads of my feet, and then soak them
in sudsy warm water while she talked of love.
I am my mother’s Matryoshka, each doll its own lacquered red,
sun-yellows and brilliant greens, flowers of her homeland, peasant
and princess, each piece a story, a variation from that tiniest doll, a baby
fashioned from a single perfect piece of wood.

Lisa J. Parker is a poet, musician, and photographer. Her book, This Gone Place, won the 2010 Appalachian Studies Association Weatherford Award, and her work is widely published in literary journals and anthologies, including Southern Review, The Louisville Review, Appalachian Heritage, and many Bedford/St Martins college literature anthologies. Her photography has been on exhibit in NYC and published in several arts journals and anthologies.