I was raised under thunder clapping clouds
in our tarpapered shack near Bothell.
     If a car that didn’t belong on our road
     drove by, I’d wait ten minutes for its return, 

dreaming a lilac perfumed lady and a wavy, 
dark haired man with a city’s quick wit inside it.
     Then, their vehicle spit gravel and ditched me 
     back to our grass, bumpy with mole hills.

Dad ditched us, we ran to friends, a hotel 
during a Seattle blizzard when busses swung
     side to side like dogs slow chasing their tails, 
     a boardinghouse, and the projects.
 
By high school we had an apartment we dug.
Uprooting meant finding something better.
     My friend’s Mom rang a silver bell, 
     when mine hollered, Dinner.

Dating meant boys’ parked cars. Quick 
as a mole, their hands rushed to my hills.
     I slid them down, from their
     zero-point target.

Something better, respect – 
women moved onto college. Graduation
     equaled teacher, nurse, or secretary, but didn’t
     bring me an MRS. I burrowed my emotions.

When a man from across a dance floor read
my cover fast as he could slam a handball,
     we ditched the club, peering at the stars. 
     Mole hills. Too late to level 

the playing field, the better somethings
out there were housed. Today, it’s easier to look
     in the mirror and count my wrinkles, than all
     the circles I’ve traveled that went nowhere.

Denise Utt is a poet living in New York City. Her poetry has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Paterson Literary Review, The MacGuffin, The Strategic Poet, and elsewhere.

Appears In

Cagibi Issue 24