Holding On
by Shannon Carriger
Summer days of fried chicken
and potato salad
and cans of Pringles
that pop as the metal lining
is pulled off,
my black-haired,
dark-eyed mother
a Kansas Liz Taylor
in her white one piece,
draws and holds the gazes
of strange men.
Lake water, green-brown
and murky, swallows me,
the bottom slick
with fish brine and wood rot,
my little girl feet
silky slipping as I wade out,
seeking icy spots the sun
can’t reach, marveling
at the depths that don’t
hold heat, my father’s arms
carving the water
as he butterflies to the buoy.
In the dark, in our bedroom
closet, I take
my brother’s hands
and put them over
his ears, placing mine
on top of his,
holding his small palms
against his head and humming
to keep him from hearing
all the words our parents
can’t hold in.
The first time my mother
has cancer,
I hold on to God,
certain He hears me but,
the second time, fractured
as stained glass,
I lose my grip, wavering,
until she is well
and I find Him again,
both of us sheepishly
admitting some small
fault for our separation.
In my dreams,
the lake water is always warm
and none of this
has happened yet,
and all of it has.
I am eight years old
and humming,
arms tight around
my father’s neck
as he swims to the buoy,
red and white and
endlessly bobbing,
farther from shore
than I could swim
back alone,
far enough out
that I could be lost.
I am holding on.
About the Author
Shannon Carriger is a teacher, writer, and book reviewer living in Kansas with her poet-professor husband and their dog, Zelda. Carriger won the Inscape Magazine Editor's Choice Award for Poetry in 2015 and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize; her work has also appeared in various publications including Manhattan Book Review, Blood Lotus, and The Midwest Quarterly.
From the Editor
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