Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1997)
o r K I have canceled my membership in the Angry White Ex-Wives Club. Doing so, I realize, will mean losing the subscriptions to Whining 'Women and Why Me?t Please don't take this personally. As a Twelve-Step Program, it's among the best! It's just that I'm ready to Move On. I want to be Normal now to speak naturally, unaffectedly. ‘ Train 27 will come soon to the old station with chipped paint and I'd like to erase the hyphenated family titles or substitute a synonym: instead of step-mother, how about stair-mother stoop-mother front-porcSmother veranda-mother or just -- mother? I'd like to make a new subscription list of all the ex-Angry Ex's, the ones who want anniversaries without apologies and tomorrows that don't talk back. dead grass. Somewhere down the line the temperature is below zero and my dad asks if my coat will be sufficient, My Mom's legs shine with hints of summer She had good legs My Dad says that is why he married her Sometimes he carries her over his shoulder And she laughs and kicks and shrieks And he says, "Have you seen your mother?" They giggle like children then, And I say, "No, sorry" . Again, they giggle I watch her painted toes wiggle My Dad teases the bottom of her foot with his finger This time she howls her laughter and it bounces off the ceiling, off the walls, into my Dad's heart Her tan legs fly about At last they relax against my father's chin and he flips her over onto the couch, Looks her in the eyes and says; "You know I married you because you have good legs." At which my mom takes advantage of his outspread arms and tickles him —- — Elizabeth Holloway pour hours will go by, probably too fast, and the gentle rocking of train 27 will go on without me. äSeteaeefi — Lacy Keller So, I've incorporated, taken out a patent, and I'm planning to publish optimistic little articles , from the Other Point of View. Salty crystals of sand running downtosea, > a shifting sky lifts the sand strip into a garden of subtle suns once blue, twice orange. That there is life after surgery of the soul amputation of angry ex-relati ves-by- marriage , and the purging of pains in the neck. What the heck? This Night gently rakes the back of time, marking the return of the farthest planet frozen suspended in a trajectory drawn along an ancient edge. I will write happy poems. — Kathy Haynie edition of Poets' Corner I moved the peonies last fall. I wish they’d come up so I could see where I put them. features poetry n. submitted Yesterday in the woods I saw two Snow Queen. It’s easy to miss them, they’re so tiny. Last spring I knelt and cried when Lfound the first one. by Diane in. Averill's While looking at the snowdrops blooming in the front bed I noticed the alder leaves I’ve yet to rake away. winter TV. term poetry class. V Tender skunk cabbage shoots are poking their heads out of the swamp muck taking a look around. Is it time yet? V. I wish I’d planted those crocus bulbs last fall like I mearit to but Spring always seems an eternity away in October. — Janet Martin Lights wash against the tattooed arm of morning, gaudy rosettes of casual clouds gone in a minute," belonging to horses ofthe night returning to corrals of yesterday. Now in the valley all sorts of strokes . scar the vast dry lake of my father. Once, I thought he owned all that remained unspoiled. Rabbit tracks in the Snow wrote to him alone; hearts beating as one unseen, between the lines. Icy winds protected his World — only now the valley is white and dry, divided by the interstate highway — stolen sometime while I was away. — Ronald Rasch
