Book Tour Crown of Sonnets: Another addition
Published April 14th, 2008Flying to
A couple across the aisle told me about
their son’s wife who suffered from post-partum
depression. Prozac meant nursing was out
of the question. They worried about him,
their first grandchild. They looked at Lulu, splayed
in the empty seat, sated and snoring,
and I thought of the tricks that Fortune played,
rendered mothers proud or irate or longing
for release. I said it’s a good thing she’s
taking something. I knew a new mom who
jumped in front of a train, felt she couldn’t please
or manage. The woman said, I remember feeling blue.
We wouldn’t want that, the man said with kindness.
Wouldn’t want Sue to feel such desperate sadness.
I tried not to feel the desperate madness
of the man throwing high his magazine,
but there’s just no denying the badness
of a businessman making a scene.
Meanwhile, four calm guys beside me mumbled
and joked, and I struggled to figure out
what linked them. A fair-skinned guy with jumbled
teeth craned his long neck and said, “I’ve no doubt,
that they’re gonna send me off to
I can feel it. I told my mama, you better be
ready. I don’t want you to go into shock,
but I dreamt about driving a Humvee.”
His innocent bravado made me wince,
I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.
I haven’t stopped feeling bad about it since
Lulu was nearly kicked out of my reading.
At Schwartz Books in
when her high-pitched and ear-piercing squealing
sent the careful manager searching the aisles
while Aryn Kyle read from her lovely book
and I offered apologetic smiles.
When I read in
a nap, when she woke she didn’t run away.
Two months later, she’s a roving terror
climbing into the Goodnight Moon display.
We realized too late the stupendous error
of thinking her fit for public appearance.
O the naivete of first-time parents!
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