Maverick Poet Award Finalist: “was it for this” by Sharon Coleman
Sharon Coleman is a fifth generation Northern Californian with a penchant for languages and their entangled word roots. Her winning poem “was it for this” explores generational trauma and healing in an ecological context. It’s one section from her book-length manuscript "hand-me-down."
was it for this Sharon Coleman
she turns the wheel until the machine begins stitching cuts cloth to pattern
sets right sides together pins pieces exactly last night pad of her mother’s
finger slashed off by a door her brother’s night terror slammed a doctor
sew it up a circle where her mother grafted apricot onto a plum branch
she needles buttons finishes edges trims thread slams her closet door
holds it from the inside nights his yelling bursts most nights for awhile
for two weeks apricots then their season ends plums longer in mouths
too tart to voice anything beyond tired or hungry when pieces
don’t match she undoes and stiches again what otherwise she can’t
half hour tour in an army museum her brother a scant thirteen stares nine
minutes photos of soldiers captured tortured it begins he walks through
two am darkness screams in someone’s voice morning her mother’s
needed elsewhere so she finishes mending knots hold the seam or don’t
she’s told even if your costume falls dance like it was meant to she learns
calm face not to turn the inside out great aunts once sewed piecework
grandmother dressed them well with her machine brother teaches her
write backwards in a mirror her crooked letters under his grin he
squeezes a lemon for invisible ink she singes her fingers trying to read
over scraped floor boards stained plywood burnt orange shag unrolls
stapled wall to wall she sits upstairs after school sun turns family
room fluorescent she swivels metal antennae until snow turns into belly
laughs a german sergeant who knows nothing screen doesn’t hold then
it does black and white laugh-tract behind p.o.w.s’ hidden booze maps
radio those years her father was a soldier never so clear in that room
her ice cream melts spills into carpet into her dreams two nights
in a row running through snow from one tunnel to another barbed wire
electrified fence ax swing head drops from tree stump over the tunnel out
on the second story she measures her arms and hips presses cloth when
fabric seems not enough her grandmother shows her turn and fold it back
for sleeves tv hums behind her she counts nine stitches tweezed
from her right thigh at four she didn’t remember falling just saw blood
a wound deeper than pain nerve cut too mother said her great aunt tried
to band-aid together split flesh until the doctor’s needle she counted nine
days until the bandage fell off say you wrestled an anaconda her brother
scoffs at her cut offs spring under the wild plum she holds apricot
stems knife vinyl tape tar hands them to her mother in the order asked
don’t touch cross-wise slits their corresponding cuts but match cambia
green layers under bark cells not yet distinct from others in the manual
tissues fuse callouses grows hard one year all the apricots are taken
her brother moves from second story to the first where it’s warmer
he doesn’t outgrow or remember night terrors wakes halfway out a closed
window shards cut his arm soon enough stitched up her closet a foxhole
untilhe leaves she moves to the room he slept in before it all she takes to
cold dank or numb studies crevices her grandmother frowns kitchen
or cellar grandmother loves where stories simmer this keeps them apart
this generation learns more working alone a blue coat half made
hangs quiet in the sewing closet lining dangles one sister measured
wrong other sister buys dresses traces them cuts her own takes back
store-bought pinned with receipts sisters leave before his screams begin
she learns from diagrams printed instructions machine runs warm
in the cold tv explains sleep cycles and disorder below father’s eyelids
in foxholes morotai new guinea spent ordinance helicopters when her father
opens his eyes he hears soft wind one morning he hears choppers again
above the high school someone’s son’s handmade bombs don’t go off
MAVERICK POET AWARD FINALIST “was it for this”
Sharon Coleman is a fifth generation Northern Californian with a penchant for languages and their entangled word roots. She has translated poetry from Yiddish, the language of her mother’s family and has studied the Portuguese of her father’s. She grew up deeply in tuned to seasons, growing cycles, so much of the natural world, and strongly believes in our responsibility to the environment, to Earth, and to all other planets. She co-curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and co-directs the Berkeley Poetry Festival. She’s the author of a chapbook Half Circle and a book of micro-fiction, Paris Blinks. Her winning poem “was it for this” explores generational trauma and healing in an ecological context. It’s one section from her book-length manuscript "hand-me-down." To know more about her and her work, see www.sharoncolemanpoetry.com.