The Visit This 5 year old child Made to stay with stranger father Shrinking from stepmother drudgery She screams “Sit on your daddy’s lap!” But my daddy’s back in Tulsa- The one who made me come to this broken-down farm Where chicks walk under my feet And are crushed dead And I’m yelled at for killing the yellow fluff Who quacks and is forever quiet Where cows step backward crushing my toe Eliciting sharp pain-again it is my fault For placing my foot where it doesn’t belong And it dawns on me that I don’t belong In this town on this farm with a stranger Who says he is my father
Single Mother She was airlifted out of Muskogee with 200 dollars in her pocket and a small child under each arm. Bosses hired her as a secretary for sale sent her home each Christmas with a box full of sausages, hard cheeses and crackers filled with seeds. Boyfriends crawled out from under steel enforced frames ready for arm-twisting dates and threatening stances. Apartments allowed a sort of recluse from outside barbarity until the woman from upstairs began screaming for her sanity, and moving became necessary, again. Neighborhood children created an atmosphere of terror screaming at her babies that the devil's going to get them and booger eating people were going to hell. Bouffant hair teased to the quick promised showers of hairspray rain causing hands to flip invisible objects off her shoulders, a forest given to hiding bobby pins perfect for opening doors locked by temper tantrum children She touched down on an idea far removed from her dream, created memories for small children to swallow as their own.
Stepfather 1 My sister and I linked together, sharing a tremble between us, walking toward hell after school, unknowing whether the demon will be visiting our house, or maybe he’ll be at work and we’re safe turning this corner until 6 o’clock madness. 2 3,4,5 times around the table, he grabs her hair and pulls back, eyes red with vacant look. Her mother screams, her stepfather ignores and punches her in the face 6 times. If only she had gotten off that damn couch, even though she had worked for twelve hours at the amusement park. She was tired, achy, found release in fleece blanket, “Can’t we do it in the morning?” she begged. He stood over her trembling, not understanding how someone could deny him- not given into his demands- would not surrender to his power- so she became a flower being plucked, petals falling with each punch. Somehow, in the core of her body, her mother freed her from the demon, pulled her to safety out the backdoor, into the neighbor’s yard, down the street and to the front bell where I sat with neighborhood children. If only she had gotten off that damn couch and checked the oil. 3 Entombed, my sister and I, in bathroom darkness, our stepfather screams at our mother through my own screams “I want my daddy!” Telephone, shoes, hangers, hit the shut door, the entrance to their room. Rivers from my eyes stain a pink Easter dress, worn for this day.
Tonya She and I were aliens from another world Her large black mutt was the master king we served Our faces for the outer world were disguises We showed our true form only to each other in a ruse Of face gestures, hands swept across our features. At bedtime, during stay-overs, Listerine became gin Bathroom doors stayed locked as we kept our mouths full Pretended to savor the taste of liquor The sink counter, our night-time bar and place Where we picked up our men. Bicycle rides were times to transport Our imaginary children from school to our homes. Hopefully her mother would be absent And we would sit at the kitchen table sipping Kool-aide as coffee, discussing problems with our children Messed up marriages and disappointed dreams. Eventually her family moved away. Her popularity did not fit with our plans of creativity; I was forced to become the only living alien The barfly at the counter The disappointed mother. Eventually I had to grow up too.
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Shelley Nation-Watson is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and has recently begun to write about the experience of her grandmother and other members of her family as they lived through their struggles in Cherokee Nation territory in Tennessee and Alabama to the Canadian District in Oklahoma.
