The Sound of Sugar....Sara Henning

Angry

Because ice sheens from the floor now, I’m not calling this a he just

finished sieging the kitchen kind of angry. I’m not even calling this

a I’m on my knees palming the wreckage of snow kind of angry,

though I’m on my knees.

I’m telling you, it’s not the door slamming afterward that’s holding

me here, like I’m stunned by linoleum. It’s his boots, too scarred to

become arbiters, mapping the breach of dirt and sole.

Tell me you don’t understand this wipe up the floor with his shirt

kind of angry, this bury it in the yard afterwards kind of angry.

I can’t help thinking about my grandmother riding her Schwinn four

miles to the liquor store to buy my grandfather’s booze, the way she

believed him when he told her she was too stupid to drive.

I can’t stop thinking about the line the tires must have made in win-

­ter—snow grafted to rubber, bits of asphalt smiting the bevel, even the

dark stripe always left in the wake. She never talked about the trash bag

poncho thrown over her coat, throb of leather seat between her legs,

or a whole afternoon of pedaling through slurries of salt. I learned to

imagine her leaning harshly on the turn radius, perfecting the gyro-

­scopic procession, to correct for the bottles obscuring the wind.

Imagine yourself removing your shoes in the garage, so he’ll never

see how salt can stain. Go ahead, toss the poncho onto a hook, cos-

­set the shoes with cloth and vinegar, know the salt’s there for good.

Anything can happen when you fall too far into the arms of a hard

winter. Anything.

So, this lattice-work kind of angry, this needle moving between your

heart and your bones kind of angry, tell me you’ve felt this, too.

My hands are grasping the shirt’s worn cotton. I’m touching the

door, there’s dirt stung into the linoleum’s fleur-de-lis. Dark’s now

fouling the heraldry of jade and barley.

Can’t you see he’s turned me into his river? Can’t you see I’ve become a

part of his flood? There’s transgressions that didn’t leave with his body.

Tell me it’s like salt worn into linen, the man in him like an ice floe, a

fast moving impasse over water.

About the Poet:

Sara Henning is the author of A Sweeter Water (Lavender Ink, 2013), as well as a chapbook, To Speak of Dahlias (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Her po­etry, fiction, interviews, and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Verse, Willow Springs, and Crab Orchard Review. Currently a doctoral student in English and creative writing at the University of South Dakota, she serves as managing editor for South Dakota Review.

About the Sound of Sugar:
We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.