PLACES TO FEEL

April is the cruelest month in academia, when we are all scrambling to get all the projects done, students heard, papers and exams graded. So… a little breather for me this month and maybe for you, if you’re in a stressed place. A poem and a photo to go with it. Enjoy.

PLACES TO FEEL

The grocery store—if you go alone:
reach deep for frozen Brussel sprouts or peas,
close slowly the frosted glass door.
Your tears will stiffen on your skin,
easy to flick off before other shoppers notice. 

Or—your womblike car, when the kids stay home,
surrounded by the music they mock, but
which reaches some part of you, mostly unreachable.

Not in the park: too many other mothers
or fathers who crowd the jungle gyms, 
yelling direction to their aspiring Olympic offspring
to hide their own loneliness. 

The safest place is the shower. 
You can lock the door
with enough time so no other’s needs interrupt,
and the water can stream across your skin 
like kindness.  

If not, someday your body will lock up,
shoulders and back in catatonic rigidity,
hives blossoming wetly beneath stressed skin,
old injuries protesting like tired children
moaning in the late afternoon. 

Your best bet is to weep silently,
letting it leach from your bones 
through muscle, down the nerve pathways 
and out through that carapace you’ve built
into the light and electric air.
(Originally published in Verse-Virtual, January 2022)

Branford, CT