"Censored"
My mother and Marge Wisby,
who lives up the street
are reading
ROSEMARY'S BABY.
The cover picture,
an eerily glowing bassinet
with a bold red title
on black cover,
intrigues me.
(And, if truth be told,
scares me a little).
Linda Wisby and I
emerge from the basement playroom
to find our mothers talking about the book.
The conversation stops
as soon as we enter the room.
I wonder what what the book is about.
My mother will not tell me.
I want to read the book.
My mother will not let me.
"When you are older, " she says.
She has never censored my reading.
I wonder what the book is about.
I cannot wait until I am older.
I am reading Tinkerbelle,
the story of a man who sails
a small boat across the Atlantic.
I wait until my mother is out of the room,
take the dust jacket off of Tinkerbelle,
and switch the two books.
ROSEMARY'S BABY is scary.
Much scarier than anything I have read.
Too scary for me.
My mother was right.
After one hundred pages
I switch the covers back
and return to Tinkerbelle.
I am censored. By me.
(C) Carol Wilcox
First of all, poetry month always brings to my attention forms that are new to me. Today it was the shardoma. I'm going to have to dig into this a bit. Carol, I think I'm a little partial to your story poems. I loved the way the first stanza told the story of the two mothers and then the second the kids walking in on a conversation about a book. There is something enticing about something we aren't supposed to do or have or read. I had to smile at the end when the narrator censors herself. I still do that.
ReplyDeleteI tried a shardoma earlier in the month too--and got nowhere. Seemed so simple when I wrote down the rules. Just couldn't get it to work when I started playing with it. I love your story poems, and this one brings back so many memories of books I tried to read that were just too much for me at the time I was reading them!
ReplyDeleteLove reading your foray into forbidden territory and the choice you made that it wasn't right for you. Did you ever go back to it? I don't do scary!
ReplyDeleteYou are the consummate storyteller-in-poem-form. Don't ever doubt yourself. (You gave yourself good advice about that book!!)
ReplyDelete