“Grounding” by Sandra Meek
5th and 6th Stanza
[…]That summer, retracing my parents’
younger lives, I drove past the red-stone mental hospital
where they’d worked, through what use to be
countryside, good rock hunting, now a clutter
of suburban yards, bricked fences.
What I learned from my father: it’s stasis
that kills, and face cards are always
the ones to keep. From my mother: self is just
what doesn’t leave you. What I taught myself
between flights, to orbit any celestial stone is to lose
everything but direction.
On the margin of a neighborhood
going up, the only roses I unearthed were failed
partial blooms: one side ridged, the other
smooth as an Amish doll’s face
the maker leaves unfeatured
to avoid sin, the graven image. As if God didn’t know
to go any deeper.
---------------------
One vacation, transcribing my earlier trips
to beaches, I crept over black sand, sea weed, and shells
into the ocean where Uncle Scott tossed me
like an inflatable boy. A cold Great Lake:
just jump in, it’ll be over soon, the water’s great.
I never learned why the lake was great,
why all of these black family members could swim.
The Peachtree Diving Center taught me
between snorts of chlorine and giggling, proper
diving technique, Speedos are a no, and how to swim.
Inside my fear of drowning survives a dip
into a pool deeper than I am tall, rescue by my sister’s
bestie: the whole is blue, the outside blurry
as if the mind consciously avoids drowning again.
5th and 6th Stanza
[…]That summer, retracing my parents’
younger lives, I drove past the red-stone mental hospital
where they’d worked, through what use to be
countryside, good rock hunting, now a clutter
of suburban yards, bricked fences.
What I learned from my father: it’s stasis
that kills, and face cards are always
the ones to keep. From my mother: self is just
what doesn’t leave you. What I taught myself
between flights, to orbit any celestial stone is to lose
everything but direction.
On the margin of a neighborhood
going up, the only roses I unearthed were failed
partial blooms: one side ridged, the other
smooth as an Amish doll’s face
the maker leaves unfeatured
to avoid sin, the graven image. As if God didn’t know
to go any deeper.
---------------------
One vacation, transcribing my earlier trips
to beaches, I crept over black sand, sea weed, and shells
into the ocean where Uncle Scott tossed me
like an inflatable boy. A cold Great Lake:
just jump in, it’ll be over soon, the water’s great.
I never learned why the lake was great,
why all of these black family members could swim.
The Peachtree Diving Center taught me
between snorts of chlorine and giggling, proper
diving technique, Speedos are a no, and how to swim.
Inside my fear of drowning survives a dip
into a pool deeper than I am tall, rescue by my sister’s
bestie: the whole is blue, the outside blurry
as if the mind consciously avoids drowning again.
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