MARY ANNE ROJAS—"THE STORY" (Issue 21)

Sugar House Review · Mary Anne Rojas's "The Story"

THE STORY

they never thought it would happen. that it would ever leave
its house, free and wandering. that it would visit other
people’s homes, drink coffee with them, read a poem aloud to
their lover. the white people thought it came in bouquets, like
wrapped flowers with uneven edges. the white people thought
it would have a bow that you can unwrap gently. the white
people dreamed of the anticipation—how it would be like to
watch it flutter with ease, increasing volume with air. the
white people thought it would have sounded different, like
something more formulaic, like notes to hymns, or the way
one reads how to put together a table. the white people
thought it was dead and that language doesn’t come from dead
things. the white people thought it was a ghost. the white
people thought it would have warned them before arriving.
the white people ran to church. the white people thought it
wouldn’t have taken up so much space. the white people
thought it would have stayed in her office. the white people
thought they were free. the white people thought that it would
have sounded different. the white people thought it would
have behaved. the white people thought it would sound like
them. the white people thought it could be softened into
baby’s breath and lilies. the white people thought there
wouldn’t be smoke. the white people thought that thunder
only came from earth. and then, one day the white people
said, “Did you hear that?”

 

ABOUT THE POET 

Journeying from the womb of the Bronx, New York, Mary Anne Rojas (she/her/ella) is a woman of the African diaspora, a poet for justice, and a cultural mediator. She is the founder of The Gift Foundation, Inc. and The Protest Review since 2020. Her undergraduate work is in English and Africana & Latino Studies from SUNY New York College at Oneonta, and her graduate work is in transnational studies, concentrating in Caribbean and Latin America studies from the University at Buffalo. Currently a graduate student of Global Public Health at New York University, Mary Anne spends her time understanding how social and cultural factors can contribute to the health of a community through the intersection of joy and resistance. When she is not reading, she is navigating multiple worlds, drawing thinking-system maps for radical social change, engaging in community protest, and writing poetry as a tool for breaking silence(s).

 

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

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 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.

JENNIFER GARFIELD—"MOTHERHOOD" (Issue 21)

Sugar House Review · Jennifer Garfield's "Motherhood"

MOTHERHOOD

 "Who by fire? ... Who by barbiturate?" 
—Leonard Cohen

I’m keeping a list of all the bad things that can happen to the people I love.
There are, for example, 67 ways my children might die in a house fire,

even though we play stop, drop, and roll each night before bed. Remember
the Arizona twins who drowned in the canal when their mom lost control

of the stroller while swatting a bee? See what I mean? It’s like a tragedy
cornucopia, each fruit its own sweet horror. Pick dismemberment. Pick

poison. Pick sexual assault. And we haven’t even begun to explore
the medical options. Leukemia is a big one. That Jewish disease

that makes your pee like maple syrup. Don’t forget measles, though I, too
had forgotten that one, until I learned our neighbors are anti-vaxxers.

And then there’s the gun-owners on the corner, and I don’t even need
to write that one down, since the entire world is a list of ways to die

by bullet. I’m a teacher. I keep umbrellas in my classroom to use as weapons,
sit the rugby players by the door just in case, and every so often I wonder

which doorway the shooter (shooters?) will enter from and will it be
while we are talking about metaphors? Will I have the guts to do

what the police officer advised at the training—(Pull his motherfucking arm off)—
which didn’t make me feel empowered or in control of my destiny at all?

In Lexington, I heard their police shoot blanks during active shooter drills
at the high school. Teachers must decide to shelter in place with their class

or run based on how close they think they are to death. If you make the wrong
choice, a cop will leap from the hallway corner and say bang. You didn’t make it.

This is the stuff I’m talking about. When Jamie Closs was found
after being kidnapped and held captive by the man who murdered her parents,

my first thought was, this is quaint. He had a single weapon: one lonely,
innocent rifle. It was a comfortable, old-school crime. A back-of-the-milk-carton

crime. When we were mugged and the baby was 2 months old,
my body and mind detached and everything happened in slow motion,

like they say it does. The pockmarked man drew his knife, hours later
held it above my head, and it was an eternity or two before that blade

swept the air above the stroller. I remember it glimmered
in the early morning sun like a jewel. Perhaps I was thinking,

You don’t have a gun? Remember when the JCC’s had all those bomb threats,
and the preschoolers, who were swimming, had to carry the babies outside?

They didn’t have time to get their towels. I picture my daughter
in her pink flamingo one-piece, frog goggles, wrinkled toes, those drops

of chlorinated water that gather on her upper lip. Then her thin, shivering arms
wrapped around someone’s baby, four feet dragging across the snow-dusted ground.

My Bubbie believes terrorists are building underground tunnels leading
into elementary schools. She honestly believes this is happening as we speak.

What terrorists? I ask. You know who I mean, she says. In my mind,
my daughter blows a bubble and someone bursts it with the tip

of an AK-47. I feel a little better writing this all down. My kids are asleep.
I just checked, and they are still breathing. The default, I know, is to live.

 

ABOUT THE POET 

Jennifer Garfield’s work has been published or is forthcoming in journals including Salamander, Frontier, and Threepenny Review. She is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Literary Grant and Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing Parent-Writer Fellowship. She is a high school English teacher near Boston.

 

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

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 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.