USA

hruggier@localnet.com

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

Working in the kitchen – a miscue -
the right brain who sings,
remembers lyrics
separated from the linear processor
who heard herself singing:
volantes vexare ad deum tubare –
starting, aware, actually stunned
by what she didn’t understand
coming out of her own mouth.

From 9th Street the church chimes
were asking the Lord’s blessing
softly though closed windows
almost below hearing,
so faint it might be radio voices
from another decade still
flailing in the atmosphere.

We gathered around Ms. Dudley’s desk
giving thanks in Latin Two.
More of a miracle than speaking in tongues
that I would sing in a language
dead thirty years.

And the two of us,
she who sings
and she who thinks she understands
gathered ourselves together
thankful for small blessings
in the air all around us.

Published originally in POEM

APPROACHING
THE GATES OF HELL

You hear first the great din -
baying and barking, growls and yelps,
as you cross the first river the pack
moves toward you, tails awag, ears up.

Shep who guarded your carriage,
put away for killing chickens;
Skippy, the cocker spaniel who sulked
if you wouldn't throw his ball;

Lady, the gun shy hound who got hit
by the truck when you let her loose;
Bruno, part chow, who pulled you everywhere;
Strider, the mutt, who attacked the mop.

They come when you think of them,
dancing out of the pack,
Brandy who widdled with joy
leaving a path for the others.

They gather around
wagging their whole back ends,
leaning into your knees,
taking their due.

Together you pass the gates of horn
with nods from Cerebus
who knows to make an easy crossing
for those who come with their dogs.

Published originally in POET LORE

Helen Ruggieri
hruggier@localnet.com

COMING OF AGE

My mother said, don't you
be giving boys that crosseyed
look. You keep in school
and learn to read. I don't want
none of them hanging around here.

She'd stand, arms akimbo
challenging the mountain
and I think it quavered
at her most ferocious.

But cancer came and ate her up
and all her meanness was no use.
But I learned to read real good
and figure out the formulas
and the teachers said I
should go to high school
over in Raleigh and make something
out of myself for my mama's sake.

That summer I'd slip out at dusk
to the field where they played
ball under the lights and sit
in the bleachers and oooh at
the crack of the bat
and clap as they slid home
and maybe smile when they looked up.

They didn't tell me like the
teachers did, but I could read
on their faces what momma meant;
they boiled inside like eels,
every part of them wanting to
move at you. They'd siddle up
like moonblood was a perfume.

I kept going back
sat on them hard old bleachers
in the twilight, my legs crossed,
leaning forward a little, my
fist under my chin, ooohing, and
aahing at those arms all muscle
and slick as teflon.

I'd dream about arms twining around
half afraid, half beggin'
and mamma's face, hard and thin.

Something was gonna come of this,
something was waitin to come.
I couldn't read no more,
my head filled up with worms
slithering down my body
wantin' a way out.

When the heat was heavy, come August,
and it was time to decide,
the shortstop hit a homer
with the bases loaded
and he come up after the game
all cocky, his friends joshin' him,
said he seen me up there watchin',
wanted to walk me home.

He tells me how pretty I am
and how good I smell,
and whispered a spell in my ear, I swear.
I didn't hear nothing
but what he put into me.

He'd come out to me waiting by
the fence all shower damp and
his hair slicked back,
bend down and kiss my cheek
and we'd walk slow into the dark
and he'd wrap them arms around me
so I was squashed against him
and he'd hold me like that
kissing me, kissing me
until I was silly
with what he had, wanting it all.

I made him wait until dark
of the moon when nothing planted grows
and he filled me up with baby oil
like he was plowing a field
and I didn't care.
I thought I'd die
I was so filled up with him.

He wouldn't let me go to Raleigh,
couldn't be away from me that long.
But it didn't matter none,
cause the moonblood faltered
my belly swole up,
and we got married,
went to live with his folks
over in Christianburg.

After the baby was born
she'd suck on my nipples
and I'd feel the pull on my insides
like I wanted a man,
but I didn't, couldn't think of it yet.
I'd sit in the rocker in the dark
that baby sucking and remember mama
standin' with her arms crossed
on the porch shakin' her fist -
at nothin' it seemed.

Unpublished

© All Copyright, Helen Ruggieri.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.