She Said I'm A Poet

by Charlene Stegman Moskal

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           They were in the den, he in the recliner, she leaning against the sofa cushions.  The television threw staccato lights as the crime show droned on. She stayed an obligatory prisoner hoping he would acknowledge her loyalty, when every part of her wanted to retreat. The program was a banal rehashing of all the other shoot-em-ups in the cops and robbers genre he so loved. During a commercial break, he unexpectedly said to her:

You should write a story.

I'm a poet. I don't write stories.

He insisted, loudly; she capitulated. Thankful to escape, she said she’d try. She would write a story to pacify him, taking the path she had grown used to, not obsequious, but as a woman mediating her own life, making "nice" to keep peace while walking on eggshells. She went to her studio.

           She wrote about dark passages, ghosts haunting dreams. She wrote about the ever-present fear of death, the unknown, the way time lives in the past even as the future unfolds. She told a story of loss and how the thread from one generation can get lopped off like the tail of a lizard and grow back twisted.

           She returned to the den. He put the show on hold. She read it to him.

           He said:

This is crap. No one wants to read about your demons. Write something uplifting, something people want to read about.

           She took a deep breath, forced a smile, said he was probably right. She would try something else, something different, more appealing.

She retreated. She wrote about dragonflies skimming over a tranquil bottle-green pond. She wrote of crisp Macintosh apples in the September air, and of children laughing with ice cream faces. She wrote of lovers kissing, gently exploring their passion with plans for a forever future. Her story was as light as lost balloons wafting above trees.

           She returned to the den. He put the show on hold. She read it to him.

           He said;

This is crap. No one wants to read a fantasy. Why don’t you write about something you

know, something you feel. Write your truth.

           She went back to the safe place she had carved out, the sanctuary holding her things close at hand. She sat at her desk, the vanity table that had once belonged to her mother. She looked at the photographs of her ghosts hanging on the walls. They smiled as she started the new story. She wrote about a poet who finds the sharpest knife in the kitchen. She wrote about honing the blade to a razor's edge. She wrote about stabbing

him over and over and over until all that was left was unused, spent passion in a pool red as betrayal.

           She returned to the den. He put the show on hold. She read it to him.

He said nothing. When he walked out, winter air blew fresh through the house. The door was left opened.

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