“Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.” ― Jack Kerouac
The Quickening
Because I believe in perfection
I believe in abortion
Babies are asymmetrical
They/she/he/it squander
The silken grammar of routine
But, a fetus can be edited
Its absence assures a lacy indefectibility
In the vacuum, I can breathe
It’s not right
It’s not the right time
I don’t want to hunker down in Staten Island
Or be on bed rest
Or buy big clothes
Or rush to alter with a gown and a groom and a promise
With rice raining on me
like fallout.
I don’t want to be folk like my mother was folk.
Children growing out of her hairdo.
Dull eyes and unpainted nails.
Waking on the hour to feed. Feeding. Always feeding the hungry.
The weeping.
Little ones pursuing happiness.
Little ones rob happiness.
Fuzzy fussy responsibilities piling like landfills
On and on and on, like a heartbeat.
Wait for Rain
They’d have to save all the whales before they get to prisoner’s rights. Still, to
protect the unborn I’m cuffed in front transported on a state bus.
Will the maternity ward be pastel blue or pastel pink? It’s institutional white. I’m no
angel. They are no monsters. They speak in a hush.
Going under, reminds me of the high life. Like a slap, his cry kills my buzz. We bond
for two years, then he’s off to his sentence.
The name I gave him won’t stay.
He won’t remember my scent.
He doesn’t have my eyes.
But maybe one day if he’s not shipped too far on a side street glazed with rain. I’ll
pass a stranger who won’t be.
At 21 Months
Little Boy with the heart shaped face
Already I’d like to fight every bully for you
Though slights at your age are just that
So slight
But that four year old Nazi who blocked your way at the sliding board
Deserves a beat down
Little boy with the heart shaped face
Already you lord over me. I’m your genie sprung from the bottle
Providing you a dozen dinner options
Allowing you to settle on a meal of oyster crackers and ice cream
Little boy with the heart shaped face
Whose Charlie Chaplin falls scar
Breaking my heart over and over
You can talk but you won’t
Your letter recognition full of caprice – 2, 5, 6, 9, 10 Why?
Little boy with the heart shaped face
I know why some parents kill their young
But I’d rather love you to death…
The Black Writer
cold black words
corrupt the pale
virginity of paper
changing innocence
dark transforms it from
eden, with tiny letters
that mean something,
with quick hands, you
peck the nothingness
because you are inclined to tell
the world what’s on your mind
ruining the blank chastity of
empty whiteness
Words Leave Me Hungry
What do cannibals do about dinner
when there is nobody around?
I remember the first time I had sex only because
every other time was better.
Do all journeys last forever?
I don’t write much any more
just a line or two
per year
If the past is deep,
is the future shallow?
They don’t come,
the visions
All I see is nothing
And more nothing
It’s not like when I was young and throbbing
neath that body so much larger than mine
everything was bigger than me back then
bigger, bolder
There is no substitute for human contact
Words leave me hungry
“The Quickening” and “Words Leave Me Hungry” were published in Tacenda Literary Magazine, Copyright, Spring 2011, Allison Whittenberg. Used by permission of the author.
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Allison Whittenberg is the author of the Young-Adult books Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, Sweet Thang and Tutored. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a Master of Arts in English, she taught in several colleges such as Drexel, Hamline, and University of Pennsylvania. An avid traveler, she’s visited all of the United States, along with Caribbean and Russia. You can find her books on Amazon.