(PROSE POEM)

WAITING TO GROW UP
​—includes answers to some most asked questions on Google
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​MARC FRAZIER

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​We had tuna casserole almost every Friday. That or scrambled eggs. Or fish sticks which made me gag. Sunday evenings my parents would unveil a half gallon of Neapolitan ice cream and slice it in pieces to put between fresh, hot waffles. This was the kindest thing they ever did. It’s not like we dined on beef stroganoff or even knew what it was. Although a relative once brought rabbit for us to cook for Sunday dinner. I had mixed feelings about that even then. Mother could turn anything—a wrinkle in time—into a casserole. And we’d eat it. She never stopped moving. It’s not like someone would be waiting at the door at day’s end carrying a dozen roses for all her efforts. And she never stopped warning us of things. If we laid out in the sun too long she said get inside you’ll get sunstroke. She believed this. Our grandfather’s brother spent his life in an asylum in Iowa and they’d diagnosed him with sunstroke, so she imagined us babbling in some dark ward somewhere from too much sun. Every Sunday at mass I stared at the statue of the Virgin Mary and thought of sky. I saw blue everywhere for a while. Let silence take you to the core of life. Rumi said this but I sensed the truth of it after Communion. Still I resented being so small and unheard I could never plan what to do next. I went with the flow.

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​Marc Frazier has widely published poetry in journals including The Spoon River Poetry Review, Good Men Project, f(r)iction, The Gay and Lesbian Review, Slant, Permafrost, and Poet Lore. Marc is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for poetry and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a “best of the net.” Willingly, his third poetry book, was published by Adelaide Books, New York in 2019. His website is www.marcfrazier.org

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