(PROSE POEMS)
JENNIFER WOODWORTH
SOPRANO
What if you told me one day how you went out to feed your chickens, and told me about the chickens, and how you saved your favorite girl for last and what you like about her and how did you get her and what does the reflection of the sun glimmering in her feathers make you think of, what does it make you think about where you’re headed, or where you’ve been and how you’d get from there to there in one step instead of two or five instead of three and what music would you be listening to and you were in a concert one night only tangentially related to the glimmering feather and were to sing which piece of music and you had the solo you wished you did and it had a favorite part and a scary part because it was hard, probably they were the same part or were they and you dress early and have a drink in the little bar next door before the show and because you are living your life
as you or your mind in some other woman’s body maybe you saw yourself, glimpsed yourself from the back as you turned your head to the side a lovely profile, the black performance gown, deep back high neck ageless beauty she moves a hand to her chin lifting a length of pearls entwined in her fingers you think of the word
“opera” you hear little clicks of pearls running along the nails and she twists her forearms around each other, clasped hands beside her face a man who loves you says in a Bogart voice you know you shoulda been in pictures, kid a click, the flash of your smile when you hear the orchestra’s tuning next door you dash out, through the alley and the backstage door to your dressing room where a box of irises waits for you.
as you or your mind in some other woman’s body maybe you saw yourself, glimpsed yourself from the back as you turned your head to the side a lovely profile, the black performance gown, deep back high neck ageless beauty she moves a hand to her chin lifting a length of pearls entwined in her fingers you think of the word
“opera” you hear little clicks of pearls running along the nails and she twists her forearms around each other, clasped hands beside her face a man who loves you says in a Bogart voice you know you shoulda been in pictures, kid a click, the flash of your smile when you hear the orchestra’s tuning next door you dash out, through the alley and the backstage door to your dressing room where a box of irises waits for you.
SHAYNA
The last day you were a girl, I saw it: you were falling in love for the first time, the blush, the glow in your cheeks, a little sweeter, a little deeper every day until we could both see the bottom of that well.
That day, in your blue calico dress, you were still innocent in your spaghetti straps—but every day you seemed less like the child who looked after mine and more like my dear friend.
And you photographed me with my baby girl riding her fabulous purple trike with the fat tires and matching streamers, her legs sticking straight out, while I pushed and rode on the step in back. The baby was wearing her bee suit with the sewn-on stinger. I will never forget how I loved that moment more than I loved my own youth but only because you knew,
somehow you knew to take that photo for me—beautiful, forever gift, the exact moment: She’s laughing, her antennae are blurred. I’m laughing too, about the secret I’ve just whispered in her ear. Knowing comes in clicks and shudders. Lovely girl, the next time I saw you, you were gone.
That day, in your blue calico dress, you were still innocent in your spaghetti straps—but every day you seemed less like the child who looked after mine and more like my dear friend.
And you photographed me with my baby girl riding her fabulous purple trike with the fat tires and matching streamers, her legs sticking straight out, while I pushed and rode on the step in back. The baby was wearing her bee suit with the sewn-on stinger. I will never forget how I loved that moment more than I loved my own youth but only because you knew,
somehow you knew to take that photo for me—beautiful, forever gift, the exact moment: She’s laughing, her antennae are blurred. I’m laughing too, about the secret I’ve just whispered in her ear. Knowing comes in clicks and shudders. Lovely girl, the next time I saw you, you were gone.
Jennifer Woodworth studied creative writing at Old Dominion University. She is the author of the chapbook, How I Kiss Her Turning Head, published by Monkey Puzzle Press and is the recipient of the A Room of Her Own Orlando Prize in Flash Fiction and the Nassau Review Writers Award in Poetry. Her stories and poems have appeared in Ginosko, Bop Dead City, Opium, and others. She knows how lucky she is whenever she gets a moment to write.
