Freckles: Notes of an Online Journal

”Freckles”


Whenever I finish a poem,
I’m amazed, bewildered
so I vicariously,
hardly phased, want to
pull on my hair, even
yank it out when I
read what I’d just done,
that’s not fair.

But my father
always said
“Life is not fair”
and left it at that.

What is it that makes me;
what was it this time...
not enough rhyme?

The peasant blouse I wore,
that had to be it:
with hand-stitching
of birds and blossoms
across the
entice of a bosom’s
seasonal rite?

Another one of my
wardrobe throwbacks
out of joint,
what was the point?
I always got sunburned.

How my shoulders
peeked out,
helpless,
as I made a
faux pas kind of
statement.

Who’s your pal —
I’m just not a
peasant blouse
kind of gal.

All I have to show for
all those sunburns
are freckles,
because I had
red in my hair
as a child
so I could never tan,
only burn,
peel and freckle.

*Oh maybe just whistle.
You know how to whistle
don’t ya Steve?
You just
put your lips together
and blow.*




*Bacall to Bogie in “To Have and Have Not” (1944)


NaPoGloPoWriMo 2019