This is a poem about being in high school
and being in drama class.
High School Drama.
"I like the gels, the reds, the blues.
You could make it look like fire or snow.
In the scene in which I am dead, the other actress
is lovingly touching me, lovingly touching me
because I am her dead sister.
And we have not survived a prairie winter.
Broken dishes, flying geese, grandmother's flower garden,
log cabin, crazy double wedding ring.
The whole scene, I don't say a word the whole scene.
The dress is hooked and eyed and hooked
and eyed up and down our spines and necks.
None of our mothers were quilters,
we had to make our own.
The girls do not know how to sew.
I am the only girl who knows how to sew.
A man is hit by a train.
The man is my husband.
And my monologue, I talk about laughing so hard.
I like crazy the best.
We could only do period pieces.
Plays that were set in time periods not near
or in the one in which we were living.
My husband is returned to me in so many pieces.
My husband is returned to me in a whiskey barrel.
I am a woman whose husband has died.
I am a dead girl.
Apparently, we are all so tired because all night we
were battling a prairie fire with bags of burlap.
The man at the general store sells calico.
The woman doesn't have enough to buy.
For the sales counter, we use an ugly old theater block.
I hate the theater block.
I want real furniture.
Bolts of muslin, yards and yards that we can really cut.
The cash register is pretend."