deepundergroundpoetry.com
Lizzie
1
The first ghost story I heard
was told in the playground, when I
was eight or nine. It was called Lizzie,
and about a woman of that name
who kills her newborn and hides it in
a closet under the stairs.
(My house had such a closet,
so this became the scene.)
Several years passed,
apparently without
degradations of the flesh
that would make the child in the closet
reveal itself.
But one night as she dozed
Lizzie heard a voice at the foot of the stairs.
‘Lizzie... I’m on the first step...’
She ignored this.
(Of tough stock, was Lizzie,
or simply odd. Who knows
what’s wrong
with a woman who buries
her baby among
the Monopoly boards
and vacuum heads?)
Two hours pass.
‘Lizzie... I’m on the eighth step...’
Our maiden of infanticide keeps mum.
The storyteller here affects
a sing-song voice:
‘Lizzie... I’m on the twelfth step,
I’m on the landing,
I’m in your brother’s room...’
Lizzie falls asleep.
(I told you she was odd.)
The next day she thinks
to check on her brother
and finds him in his own closet,
anything but gay.
He’s hanging from the rail
with a coat-hanger thrust
through his forehead.
2
The ending always puzzled me.
Why a coat-hanger?
It seemed like such a weird non-sequitur.
But sharing the story with you
I suddenly get it.
What more cliched symbol of abortion
is there? Lizzie killed her baby.
Did she, maybe, do it with a coat-hanger?
Again, who knows? By the time I was eight
or nine and being told the story by
another kid, it had been flattened out
so only its basics remained:
woman, baby, closet, stairs, hanger
Stripped of motivation, too,
it seemed like just a mystery.
Only now I’m grown, does it seem as if
the story’s ghost was mere misogyny.
The first ghost story I heard
was told in the playground, when I
was eight or nine. It was called Lizzie,
and about a woman of that name
who kills her newborn and hides it in
a closet under the stairs.
(My house had such a closet,
so this became the scene.)
Several years passed,
apparently without
degradations of the flesh
that would make the child in the closet
reveal itself.
But one night as she dozed
Lizzie heard a voice at the foot of the stairs.
‘Lizzie... I’m on the first step...’
She ignored this.
(Of tough stock, was Lizzie,
or simply odd. Who knows
what’s wrong
with a woman who buries
her baby among
the Monopoly boards
and vacuum heads?)
Two hours pass.
‘Lizzie... I’m on the eighth step...’
Our maiden of infanticide keeps mum.
The storyteller here affects
a sing-song voice:
‘Lizzie... I’m on the twelfth step,
I’m on the landing,
I’m in your brother’s room...’
Lizzie falls asleep.
(I told you she was odd.)
The next day she thinks
to check on her brother
and finds him in his own closet,
anything but gay.
He’s hanging from the rail
with a coat-hanger thrust
through his forehead.
2
The ending always puzzled me.
Why a coat-hanger?
It seemed like such a weird non-sequitur.
But sharing the story with you
I suddenly get it.
What more cliched symbol of abortion
is there? Lizzie killed her baby.
Did she, maybe, do it with a coat-hanger?
Again, who knows? By the time I was eight
or nine and being told the story by
another kid, it had been flattened out
so only its basics remained:
woman, baby, closet, stairs, hanger
Stripped of motivation, too,
it seemed like just a mystery.
Only now I’m grown, does it seem as if
the story’s ghost was mere misogyny.
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