Sally Bradshaw

We Were Free

Stella Bates

We were free,

As we danced in the meadow, Grass tickling our feet. The sunny shades of yellow, Following along with our beat.

We were free,

As we laughed in the water, Trees swaying overhead. Please, I am someone’s daughter, And yet I am filled with dread.

We were free,

As we jumped the jagged wave, We climbed the rocky shore. I will take this to my grave, For how could I ask for more?

We were free,

As the breeze waltzed in our hair, The valleys below wild with terror. I know it is not fair, For I gave them quite a scare.

Oh please, hear my plea, For, once, we too, were free.

on living (a house made of pages and ink)

Sally Bradshaw

I. repeat the question

in almost every year of grade school (at least the ones i can remember) we were taught that the first step to an answer was to restate the question:

1. What year was the Declaration of Independence signed?

The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

we were taught to make things seem true even if they really weren’t; to provide the illusion of knowledge even when we were grasping at multiple choice hand holds to keep us tethered to the test the desk is drowning in tips and tricks and paradoxes (or is it paradoxi?): we are taught to count our fingers for multiples of nine but never for addition or subtraction: to speak clearly and firmly but that only idiots need to speak when reading to themselves.

1. What is nine times nine?

Nine times nine is eighty-one.

even now it’s stuck in my head like gum to the underside of a plastic chair grasping for answers i should know without counting or moving my lips (they are chapped) a simple answer is a wrong one maybe if i keep repeating the question enough the answer will be shaken out of place or maybe if i keep repeating the question enough i can make it true

1. Are you okay?

Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay.

II. jimmy and kate

Jimmy and Kate wait together between white walls. Sometimes waiting is all they have. * Jimmy played ball in the fifties. Sometimes he disrespects the black nurse, sometimes he forgets why she’s there. Jimmy’s hands used to fit perfectly in Margaret’s. He used to hum jazz melodies to her at night in their stuffy New York apartment, car horns blaring outside. He used to go to every one of Michael’s T-ball, little league,

high school games and yell at the umpire every time. His sister Alice used to make popsicles in the summer, and Jimmy remembers every flavor.

Jimmy knows all the songs Alice used to sing. Sometimes he forgets the words. * Kate plays soccer for her school. Sometimes she yells at the referee, sometimes she forgets to be angry. Kate’s hands know their way around the trumpet. She loves the jazz tunes her grandfather taught her back before she was big enough to blow a note. She used to read comics, novels, magazines in the summertime, and sometimes she got sunburns at the pool. Kate has a crush on a boy named Daniel who plays soccer for her school.

Kate knows all of Daniel’s favorite books. Sometimes she forgets her own. * Jimmy and Kate wait together between white walls. Sometimes waiting is all they have.

Kate knows this is the end. Sometimes Jimmy knows it too.

III. skinny

There is something missing from my body; the subtlety of soft curves and submissiveness lost within a maze of

jagged bones jutting out like the mouthguard of a professional boxer, gloved fists up and ready to fight. Something lies terribly awry in the too-sharp cheekbones that don’t smile for anyone who calls me “baby”, too-tight skin curled over ink stained fingers ready to tear the sky apart if they weren’t always told to be painted like a carnival tent to welcome visitors inside.

There is something missing from my body; I can count every rib as they expand, my heart is a prisoner inside my chest beating its hands against sternum-bone bars that shouldn’t be visible from a stranger’s eyes, except they are. Door-knob knees that can run for miles buckle under the weight of my insecurities, tendons and veins and ligaments like the rigging of a shipwreck holding onto the broken mast long after the last lifeboat has sailed toward safer shores.

There is something missing from my body; but maybe instead of building a being out of metaphors I should take comfort and know that some flowers, some people grow most beautiful from the hollow spaces the corners and cavities, that fit perfectly any gentle fingers that will hold them as they are.

When I die; I don’t want to be cremated or buried: locked away in four cold walls alone with the whispers of the dead.

Instead; I want a special place. a tree caressing the sky, its green leaves singing in harmony with the cerulean blue. A bench of quiet stone leaning gently against the trunk to sit with memories or the pages of a book or the company of Solitude and watch time pass away.

There shall be no tombstone or carving; let my name fade into obscurity as surely as the stone bench shall weather and erode into nothing. Instead; let my name pass on in those who have remembered it, and when they too are gone, in those who need a special place.

V. a poet and a novelist

A poet and a novelist live together in a house made of pages and ink, thoughts and apostrophes.

She prefers to write on a typewriter, the kind that comes in its own little case, the ribbon often gets mixed up with the ones she ties on the ends of her braids.

He prefers to write on his hands, the walls, and whatever picture frame is closest.