Three Minute Wait

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Three minutes can become an agonizing eternity 

Alone in the bathroom at 4 A.M.  

I hold that white plastic stick like a talisman, 

Praying that the tiny spark of hope 

That always resurfaces at times like this 

Would not be extinguished once again

With tears of disappointment. 

After years of dealing with a malfunctioning body 

Flooded with deceitful hormones, 

I understood that crushing emotion all too well. 

I’m afraid to breathe, 

Fighting back another wave of nausea, 

Wondering if this could just be anxiety,

Maybe a touch of the flu, 

Or perhaps something more…

My hands shake as the timer rings 

And I glance down at the indicator, 

Terrified of what I'll find.  

In that moment, 

Two pink lines showed me 

That miracles can happen, 

Even to someone like me.

~~~ This poem was written for the latest prompt from Poetic Bloomings in their poetic memoir series, asking us to write about a moment that changed our lives.  The moment that I found out I was pregnant with my daughter Emily certainly qualifies.

I was diagnosed several years with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS.)  PCOS is a hormone disorder that affects an estimated 6-10% of all women.  Besides causing infertility in women, PCOS can also cause other symptoms including high blood pressure, insulin resistance leading to diabetes,  abnormal hair growth patterns, and obesity.  PCOS is treatable with medications, diet, and exercise, but there is no cure.  You can find more information about PCOS here.

Emmy at 2 months

Emmy age 11

  

The Pain of Chores

Photo by Mary Mansfield

Chores are a pain.

Those words

Must have passed

My lips

A thousand times

As a child.

Dishes,

Laundry,

Vacuuming…

Who wanted

To waste time

Trapped in the house

When fun and friends

Beckoned from 

The yard,

The park,

The streets 

Of the neighborhood?

Those years

Have long gone,

And today

Chores are truly a pain,

Ten minutes 

Of vacuuming

Enough to unleash

A raging monster

Coiling around 

My spine,

Sending me writhing

Searching for ice packs,

Heating pads,

And painkillers;

Folding laundry

With numb fingers

Little more

Than origami torture

In a washable

Cotton-poly blend.

I’d trade a million 

Spaghetti-crusted pans

For just one day

When the pain of chores

Was not so literal.

~~~ This poem was written for a prompt from Poetic Bloomings asking for poems about chores, the latest in its poetic memoir series.

Spilling the Beans

Photograph by Mary Mansfield

In November each year, family from far and near
Would travel in their cars, vans, and trucks,
From all across the nation for Thanksgiving vacation,
A festive celebration deluxe.

Back around ‘82, if my memory holds true,
Aunt Rose was to keep us all fed,
So she chose a meal with widespread appeal,
A batch of brown beans with cornbread.

It’s quite the trick to survive cooking for twenty-five,
And Aunt Rose was well up to the mission.
With a quite happy look, Aunt Rose set out to cook
A warm pot of  some down-home nutrition.

So into the pot went the beans that she bought,
But things didn’t quite look like her plan.
“That just won’t be enough,” so she proceeded to stuff
Four more pounds of brown beans in the pan.

Now the beans that she bought to put into that pot
Were beans that had never been soaked,
And as most cooks should know, unsoaked beans tend to grow,
So Aunt Rose stirred, waited, and hoped.

To Aunt Rose’s surprise, right before her shocked eyes
Those brown beans began to swell up.
Her panic was showing as those beans just kept growing,
Filling up all her bowls, pans, and cups.

She borrowed containers from all of her neighbors,
Seeking any support she could find
To stem the great surge that began to emerge,
A crisis of the culinary kind.

Aunt Rose needed the means to dispose of those beans,
And the family clan seemed heaven-sent;
Feeding our brood took a whole lot of food
So straight into Bean-land we went.

We ate beans in the morning; even with forewarning
The pairing still came a shock.
Lord knows we weren’t ready for beans with spaghetti.
We ate those brown beans ‘round the clock.

Beans on buttered toast, beans served with pot roast,
Beans every which way we could fashion.
Bean salad and mash, bean burritos and hash,
Just the sight of more beans left us ashen.

Now the point of this tale is not to regale
Of the need for attentive bean soaking,
But to honor Aunt Rose despite her cooking woes,
And to make up for the thirty years of joking.


~~~ This poem is based on a real bean disaster suffered by my own Aunt Rose, a story that has become the stuff of family legends.  I began this poem during the Poetic Bloomings prompt asking us to write about our favorite food, but it fit so well with this week’s prompt from Poetic Bloomings wanting stories from family vacation.  The form is a Triquatrain; you can fine more information about that particular form here.

The Fingers of Death

Dead Rose by Jiri Hodan

Death first brushed
His bony fingers
Through my world
When I was a child,
Leaving a vague sense of sadness
In a girl too young
to comprehend such finality.
As I grew older,
Those bony fingers
Touched my life again,
My grief intermingling
With teenage angst.
These days the fingers of death
Have me firmly in their grasp,
Plucking away loved ones
With unrelenting impunity,
An insidious caress
That continues to tighten
And one day will reduce me
To little more than dust.


~~~ This poem was written for a prompt from Poetic Bloomings for their poetic memoir series, this time asking us to write about the our first experience with death.

A First Love Challenge

Writing by Elisa XYZ
photo from publicdomainpictures.net

Writing a poem about you,
More than twenty years removed,
Is not that hard to do.

Icy blue eyes,
Lanky frame,
Strong hands
That could not resist
My curves,
Indelible marks
In my memory.
My taste for
Biker-cowboy-badass swagger
Was first found at your lips.
Even now
I lose myself in you
When Jeff Healey plays
In a random radio moment.
The faintest wisp
Of your cologne
Makes my heart race,
My eyes desperately searching,
Only to find unknown faces
That aren’t yours.
Every emotion
From hope to heartache
Is forever tinged
With your essence,
An echoing undercurrent
That shades my entire world.

Writing a poem about you…
That’s the easy part.
The real challenge
Is writing a poem that isn’t.


~~~ This poem was written for the poetic memoir series of prompts from Poetic Bloomings.  This week we were asked to think about the first time we fell in love.

Mary Mary

Mary Mary quite contrary,

Mary had a little lamb,

Proud Mary rollin’ on the river

Won’t tell you who I really am.

Mary Mary where you going to?

Honestly, I have no clue.

I’m not Mary Jane on her last dance

Or Ricky Nelson’s Mary Lou.

That list of tunes goes on forever,

But let me tell you just one thing:

No one else can write my story.

This is my life, my song to sing.

~~~ This was written for the latest prompt in the poetic memoir series from Poetic Bloomings asking us to write about our nicknames.  For me, it wasn’t so much a nickname as continually having songs sung to me with my name in it.

Unintended Influences

Woman and Wall by Jiri Hodan
image from publicdomainpictures.net

Those bullying girls skilled
In the art of middle school torture,
The dishonest men who received affection
But only returned derision and betrayal,
The non-believers seeking to inject
Their doubts into my resolve…
They’ve taken their shots,
Scarring my ego,
Almost destroyed me,
But they fueled my defiance,
Made me push me past my limitations,
And they continue to drive me
To build a legacy worth leaving behind.


~~~ This poem was written for the latest prompt in the series Poetic Bloomings is hosting to help us create poetic memoirs.  This time around we were asked to write about someone (outside of our family) that has influenced us.

Escaping Home

Row after row
Of rusting metal shacks
Masquerading as homes
For the desperate,
Our trailer very much
Like the others…
The yellowing linoleum,
The dingy shag carpeting
That never came clean,
The claustrophobic brown
Of the cheap paneling
That oppressed joy
And consumed laughter.
Home was never a refuge,
Rather a prison to be escaped.
I would sit on the metal steps
Leaning back against
The dented white metal door
Until the grates wore grooves
Into the backs of my thighs,
Notebook in hand
Furiously trying to write
A happier ending
Than the trailer park promised.


~~~ This poem was written a prompt from Poetic Bloomings asking us to describe our childhood home as well as a prompt from Imaginary Garden with Real Toads asking us to describe a neighborhood where we lived.

Turning the Page

The pages of my life are filled
With revisions and false starts,
Abandoned plots that led to nowhere,
A supporting cast that has failed
To live up to its billing,
The occasional villain who sought
To defile, revile, desecrate, and violate me…

But as long as I have the strength
To pick up my pen each day,
I know that the next chapter still lies ahead,
Waiting for me to put my destiny into words.


~~~ This poem was inspired by a prompt from Poetic Bloomings, asking us to write about an accomplishment we are proud of (children and family not allowed.)  This is the second in a series meant to help us create a poetic memoir.

Who Do You Think You Are, Mary Mansfield?

you still remember me by nailass @ deviantART

Maybe an old soul
Arcing through the mists of time
Remembered the joys of physical form,
Yearned to complete a journey
Begun eons ago,
Ethereal freedom
Traded for
Humanity.

Maverick tendencies
Amplify the contradictions
Nestled within me,
Sarcasm cloaked in sweetness,
Fundamental flaws
In one seeking a more spiritual side,
Eccentric yet predictably normal,
Likeable but intimidating, and just a bit
Disjointed.


~~~~~ This poem was inspired by an interesting prompt from over at Poetic Bloomings.  We were asked to write an acrostic poem using our full names entitled “Who Do You Think You Are, (insert your name here.)”  This is the first in a series of 20 prompts that is supposed to result in a poetic memoir of sorts.