Jeanann Verlee: The Worst Thing I Ever Taught a Girl

In the spring of the last year
we were together,
I walked your niece to the playground
down the block from your brother’s house.
There was sun and moss.
I pushed her on the swings,
sprang from bent knees on the teeter-totter,
climbed with her over the monkey bars.

We sat together then
on a long stretch of railroad tie
at the base of the playground, near the creek.
We were careful of the splinters.
She asked me if I loved you and I said yes.
She asked if we were going to get married and I laughed.
Not a gleeful laugh, nor one of spite, just a giggle
as wickedly innocent as each of her seven years.

I don’t know, I said,
that’s up to your uncle.

Jeanann Verlee: Good Girl

Every morning I sit at the kitchen table over a tall glass of water swallowing pills.
(So my hands won’t shake.) (So my heart won’t race.) (So my face won’t thaw.)
(So my blood won’t mold.) (So the voices won’t scream.) (So I don’t reach for
knives.) (So I keep out of the oven.) (So I eat every morsel.) (So the wine goes
bitter.) (So I remember the laundry.) (So I remember to call.) (So I remember the
name of each pill.) (So I remember the name of each sickness.) (So I keep my
hands inside my hands.) (So the city won’t rattle.) (So I don’t weep on the bus.) (So
I don’t wander the guardrail.) (So the flashbacks go quiet.) (So the insomnia
sleeps.) (So I don’t jump at car horns.) (So I don’t jump at cat-calls.) (So I don’t
jump a bridge.) (So I don’t twitch.) (So I don’t riot.) (So I don’t slit a strange man’s
throat.)