— Shout —
a poetry memoir
Laurie Halse Anderson

strawberry-blonde fairy tales

My mother, my sister, and I got up at five

on that July morning,

three women with nothing in common

save blood, disappointment, and the inherited,

trauma-fed ability

to stay silent in every situation,

we united in the need for a televised dream

live, from London

A multigenerational fantasy, the about-to-be-

princess,

sewn into confectionary silk taffeta, rode

in a glass bubble pulled by white horses,

a virgin paraded for the masses, Madonna

of diamonds and luck. Ten thousand pearls hung

from the dress, the fruit of relentless

irritation, the day’s slippery portent of doom

though, in the manner of crowds, no one noticed.

Lady Diana Spencer was three months older

than me,

raised on the same fairy tales and lies.

My mother, my sister, and I ate strawberries,

sprinkled with sugar, swimming in cream,

as we cooed like doves watching the fantasy

come to life. I’d long ago selected myself

as Prince Andrew’s bride,

cuz Charles was too much work.

My sister reserved herself for Prince Edward,

and our mother looked forward to tea

with the Queen.

Cinderella’s country cousins, we giggled,

our parsonage a small island

in whispering fields of corn.

That morning gave me the only peek

I ever had inside my mother’s imagination,

and thus planted me eternally on #TeamDiana

in the hopes I’d be allowed to visit again.

But recessionals play in a minor key;

the princess pricked her finger on a spindle,

was shattered by mirrors, cursed by fairies,

banished from the kingdom, and hunted

down by dogs. Trolls hide under bridges

and that’s where she died.

Sixteen years after the wedding

I woke in the darkness for the funeral.

My mother self-exiled to Florida

sister long lost to us both, I watched alone,

no strawberries, no sugar, no cream,

sipped coffee as black horses pulled the coffin

through the weeping city.

Rich people scorn the way the poor

buy lottery tickets,

but what would you pay for an hour

of untainted hope, of happiness unfettered?

If the ticket had my mother’s name on it

I’d dance across minefields for the chance.

manure

Living on a pig farm did not motivate

me to go to college

not picking stones from the fields

nor burning off crop stubble

nor penning up ducks trying to escape

nor plucking their feathers after slaughter

so they could be served at Christmas.

Working on a dairy farm didn’t motivate

me, either. I liked the sound of slow-breathing

cows, bruises from kicking hooves

shoveling manure, herding the girls

in from the green, chased by a bull once

I sprinted and slid to safety

under an electric fence,

freezing, sweating, muscle-burning work

made me grateful

I wasn’t stuck inside.

No, it was my job in hell,

I mean, at the mall, selling shirts

folding sweaters, moldering into a minimum-

wage service clone, clothing store sorter

of boxes of socks of urgent priority, avoider

of the manager, my mom, momager of a different

kind, she had high hopes for me,

business school for sure,

then the chance to follow in her footsteps

and be every bit as miserable as she,

circling from mall to television set,

television set to the mall.

For years I thought that was her plan

but recently I’ve begun to doubt it,

remembering her proud satisfaction

when I made a better life for myself.

I think that giving me the most boring job

in the history of the world

was my mom’s way of loving me.

lazer focused

I woke up at three thirty a.m.,

was in the barn milking by four,

headed home for a long shower,

then drove to school

Onondaga Community College,

home of the Lazers,

went to all my classes and stayed awake,

asked questions, did my homework, studied hard

and always sat in the front row.

When you are shoveling

cow poop to pay your tuition,

you want to get your money’s worth, every dime.

Some people grow up knowing what they want

to do: they color inside the lines,

study at the right school,

check off the boxes, and

in the end

they are handed the grown-up life

they’ve dreamed of.

That’s mostly bullshit, for the record.

Trying to figure out what you want to do,

who you want to be, is messy as hell; the best

anyone can hope for is to figure out

the next step.

For me the first step was to try college,

then a university, if I could get a scholarship,

to study translation: the art, science, and magic

of distilling meaning from one language

to another

but complications ensued

and the plot twisted, hard.

drawn and quartered

At community college we had a professor

sweet and fangless

he was known as “the widow”

raising nine kids on his own.

Cancer ate most of his wife

but her pregnant womb

was the fortress resisting the final bite

long enough to breathe

life into their phoenix child,

who was born in bitter grace.

That professor taught anatomy

breastbone connected

to ribs, pelvis to spine

and so on

he waxed rhapsodic about the form

of the female leg. Drew one on the board,

a small, high-arched foot wearing

a stripper-pole stiletto. The angle

of the heel tightening

the gastrocnemius muscle

of the calf, he traced the action,

contraction of muscles, drawing,

climbing the leg’s ladder until he reached

his favorite part: the gluteus maximus.

My sweet, fangless professor drew

big, bulbous buttocks

like heavy, low-hanging fruit

he patted them fondly, wanting

to take a bite, he told us

that this sweet curve of ass

was why Barbie dolls’ feet

were formed for shoes

with ridiculous heels

plastic foot-binding

for girl children,

objectification

served with mother’s milk

He never fondled, never hit

on any of us students, that old man,

but still

we left his class

feeling a little dirty.

calving iceberg

and then it was time to say goodbye

again

we packed the station wagon

for my last leaving, for the predawn trip

to Georgetown; me, my sister

Daddy and Mom,

all of us knowing

none of us saying

that I’d never live in their house again

though I’d visit when I could

the drive to D.C. hurt

the unpacking of my suitcase

positioning my alarm-clock radio

gooseneck study lamp

hot-air popcorn popper

everything hurt

as a transfer student I had a single,

no roommate to break the suffocating

silences, the awkward fumbling

for tissues, Daddy making jokes

sprinkled with bad puns so we could groan

out loud and pretend to laugh

I had no microwave or fridge or TV

but I had my dictionaries

and a phone for local calls

and envelopes with stamps

my mother cried all day long

I tried not to look at her because

it hurt

it all hurt so much

the necessary, impossible goodbye

that had suddenly, in slow motion, arrived

weakening our knees

we leaned on each other

putting my T-shirts in the drawer

hanging up my towel

unwrapping a bar of soap

opening the new toothbrush

sharpening the pencils and placing them tip up

in a plastic cup next to my typewriter

Mommy brought extra bottles of Wite-Out

cuz she knew how many mistakes I’d make

they had a six-hour drive home

so we didn’t have time for dinner

we limped down the stairs

down the stairs we limped

cuz it hurt

it still hurts

my father and my sister poured

the wet ocean of my mother into the car

buckled her in, then limped to their own doors

the melting begins at the waterline

as young icebergs prepare to calve from glaciers

the breaking off is always preceded by a rift

rarely seen by outside eyes

but felt inside the heart of the ice

the eruption, the split makes a noise

heard for miles across oceans

of salt water and time

the ripples are still washing ashore

sweet-and-sour tea

I went shopping with a new sorta-friend

my first semester at Georgetown, aliens

warily circling each other, sniffing for clues,

both of us desperate and lonely

cuz she was British boarding schools

and flying first class while I was a hillbilly

who worked on farms, chopped wood,

shoveled manure, and milked cows.

But we smelled some possibility,

so she led, I followed

and after hours of watching her buy things

(I’d never seen someone my age with a credit card)

she announced we should have a proper

English tea, her treat,

which sounded good to me.

We floated into a restaurant, perched

on Cinderella couches, spread cloth napkins(!)

on our laps, and she ordered tiny sandwiches and

a high-class blend that came with its own pedigree

I asked for plain tea, regular folks’ tea,

the waitress asked me, “Cream or lemon?”

and I said, “Both.”

It was the first cup of tea of my entire life.

Tiny, crustless sandwiches arrived

you needed two to make a mouthful

and the waitress poured our tea

into skin-thin china cups

we spooned in heaps of melting honey

added thick cream, already heated

and stirred silver spoons in an arpeggio

of satisfaction, tink, tink, tink

I was a glowing, sparkly unicorn

in love with a life that suddenly included

tea and cute sandwiches. I picked up the slice

of lemon and I squuuuuuuuuueeeeeezed

it into my dream cup

It curdled instantly, it damn

near turned into cottage cheese

for a horrified moment

we both stared in my cup

I waited,

praying for a friendly laugh to bridge

her world and mine, the way I’d laugh

sweetly

if she ever tried to milk a cow

and screwed up, which she would,

cuz it’s hard, but my laugh

would ring warm like a copper bell

and I’d help her

She snorted, her lip curled.

Scorn dripped from her chin

and burned holes in the tablecloth

torching any hope we could be friends.

Most relationships come with expiration dates

just like milk and bread. Some go sour

before you can taste them.

offending professors

Young flesh perfumed with trust

smells like fresh meat

to stalking professors

dreaming of the feast

it happened to me

twice

One: at community college, my health professor

invited me to celebrate the A+ he gave

me for a paper I wrote about LSD

he said we could drink wine at a motel, his treat

he said we would have awesome sex at the motel

he said his wife was totally cool

with him fucking students at motels

when I declined the offer

and tried to leave, he chased me around the desk

he blocked the exit

bullying me to at least make out with him

I didn’t

Two: at Georgetown University,

my department head

invited me into his office to discuss my need

for a special scholarship to study in Peru.

To be able to translate Spanish, I’d need to live

in a country where it was spoken

I brought notes to the meeting, all my pla—

he lifted his hand to interrupt me

the department head said that we had been lovers

centuries earlier

we’d been Aztecs, had sex in the jungle

he said that we were cosmic soul mates

and needed to have sex again, unite our bodies—

I walked out before the ritual chase

around the desk

Shielded by ivy curtains, tenured lions

force their prey to sprint from the water hole

in any direction that seems safe

even if it takes them far afield from their goals

he didn’t give me that scholarship

I never studied in Peru

never studied in any country

where Spanish is spoken

never became a translator

unless telling stories counts

grinding it out

I sailed to Georgetown University on a rowboat

kept afloat by student loans and

working twenty-five hours a week

water rushed in the holes at the bottom

so I bailed day and night,

just fast enough to stay above water

worked as a lifeguard,

stayed in D.C. every summer

rented a cot in a hallway, stored my clothes under it

then shared a small house with five people who

hated each other

good times

sold Time Life books over the phone, a gross job

but they let me call my grandmother every day

and talk to her for an hour for free,

instead of the thirty dollars

that daytime calls to Florida cost back then

when minimum wage was $3.35 an hour

you better believe I worked hard for them,

I loved my nana

at college I skipped breakfast, ate an apple

and granola bar for lunch

and feasted at dinner; thank you, meal plan buffet

at Georgetown I stewed my brain

in German and Spanish

when Peru was taken off the table

cuz of the predatory department head

I earned a degree in linguistics, charting

the transformation of languages

over time, vowels waltzing, consonantly flirting

words flinging open windows to the past

I avoided studying literature and writing class

married the sweetest guy I met there

who loved overseas adventures and politics

and looked really good in shining armor

the marriage didn’t work; we were way too young,

but he is still my dear friend

I loved the ancient magnolia tree

that grew next to the library

shading anxious students, perfuming the air

inviting us to stand in her cool shade

and breathe in: inspire, breathe out: expire,

catch hold of our trueselves,

sew them tight to our shadows

before the pressure of performing blew us all away

magnolia leaves are huge, waxy,

shaped like rowboats

the perfect escape for a mouse

or a small-feeling person

I didn’t need one, not anymore

I was in way over my head at Georgetown

but at least I knew how to swim

scratching my throat with a pen

After college, our wedding, after the babies came,

we were so broke I had to get a night job

cuz we couldn’t afford child care:

I became a reporter

perfect work in the dark for a shy child

beginning to clear her throat

Sewer board meetings—oh, the glamour!

and the stench of government corruption,

small-stage culture wars on school boards,

union officials who lied to me, straight-faced

just like the mom who said her kid cut

up his mouth on glass shards in his cereal

total bullshit, she later confessed

she just wanted attention and some cash

I asked questions, took notes,

wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote

revised, sniffed out lies, unburied

the lede, factual recitations

my specialty, I inquired

as required

accidentally acquiring

a calling to listen very carefully

and try to write the truth

cave painting

I’d been scribbling ever since

Mrs. Sheedy-Shea taught me haiku:

stories, poems, fairy tales, mysteries,

gothic nightmares

and, occasionally, happy endings

when I had babies I tried to write for them, too,

I sucked

but persisted, resisting the temptation to quit

I wrote picture books

that sucked so bad

they were rejected over and over and over again

but I persisted, enlisting new friends

all of us thirsting to write and be read

I pounded out novels and nonfiction,

major suckage, constantly, appropriately rejected

I freaking persisted, insisting I could figure

it out

The stories, the words, the phrases

coming out of the mists persisted,

even when I wanted

to pack it in, give it up, and get out.

My existence insisted

on listening to the voices in my head distantly

cheering my ambition

I tried a new thing—revision—

and persisted, dismissing my doubts, risking

my pride

demystifying a process

that consisted of untwisting the trysting words

in my brainpan and convincing them

to behave

inspiration and craft slowly melding

into this, the consistent beat of my words

against the drum

if it please the court

the courthouse reporter was out sick one day

so they sent me in his place, the defendant

a plain white guy, late thirties,

kinda small, cheap suit,

good haircut, charged with ugly counts

of sexual assault, plus kidnapping

he looked bored

She went to a party with friends,

hey, nineteen, a good time;

loud music and wine coolers

the night warm enough for the crowd

to dance outside, yeah, he was older

but older guys always showed up

invited or not. After dancing under the stars,

she had to go home, but the girl who drove

there was wasted and she didn’t have enough cash

for a cab

so, looking bored, he offered

to drive her home

a gentleman,

on the way he asked if they could stop

at his parents’ house for a sec

so he could let out the dog, a puppy

she loved puppies

so she followed him into his parents’ house

and found that there was no puppy,

no parents

just a roll of duct tape

and twenty-four hours of torture

as the police recited the details

the rapist yawned

Defense lawyer did his job

by attacking the victim

shouting that she drank, she danced,

she dressed to look good

she wanted it, she followed him

liked it rough

or planned on marriage or extortion

as she cried on the stand, long blonde hair

in front of her face, a curtain for her sanity,

he painted her into a corner with accusations

fantastical but just barely legal

screaming lawyers objected

counter-objected, sustained, upheld

blind justice torn apart by jackals

the jury confused

that young woman shook so hard

I thought the roof would cave in

ever been in a fight?

fists like hammers, punches thrown

rose-red bloom filling the room

as your rage catches fire

an exploding can of spray paint

when you see that red

shit’s gonna get real

you’re gonna hurt someone

or do something stupid

probably both

I saw that red, as the victim shook

cuz she’d thought she was safe

thought there was a puppy

I saw myself crawling over the seats, leaping

throwing punches, busting knuckles, breaking

a chair over his head, the sweet sound of his teeth

skittering across the floor

my pencil snapped

me, still in my chair, notebook soaked

sweat dripping down my face

judge banged the gavel

BAM!

ended the day early

I stayed till the court emptied and I could breathe

again,

told the story to my editor, who did the right thing

for journalism

by assigning someone else to cover the trial

defense lawyer negotiated a plea bargain,

the rapist

sentenced to some easy time in county jail,

a mild slap on the wrist

Years later, walking in the mall

with my daughters tall and gangly

I saw him again, that rapist

only that time, he didn’t look bored

because

he was hunting