Nature, Nurture, Andersen, Freud
She’s not mentioned in the tale—
the ugly duckling’s real,
as in biological, mother.
Did she look the other way
when a thief crept in to lift
the precious egg? Was she bribed
with succulent pondweeds
to grant custody
to a duck? If in fact Mom
succumbed to an avian bug
like heartworm,
or was slain by a firearm,
she may look down on her son
from a swanny heaven
as he finds himself
spreading his wings
in the mirror of a stream,
inspiring any number
of Baryshnikov’s. Then again
maybe she’s alive,
biding her time offstage
to take belated credit
for her genes
now that the hard part—
training an unruly cygnet—
is over. Spared
tending fevers, worries
the rebel teen
will come home late,
feathers savaged in a fight,
she may yet steal his thunder:
the good mother
gliding in like Pavlova.
~
Petals
Born with hair black as Chicago dirt,
long piano fingers
she learned to snap
before she could walk.
A home birth. No nurse to fault,
explain this shocking
DNA report. Had he guessed
she wasn’t his, the man
in the teamster’s cap?
He cradled her in the picture,
proud Papa. Daddy’s girl.
Was it vengeance then,
the abuse? Wounding
to wonder. So much to ask
the dead. She weeps
in the Metro, waiting
on a cold stone bench,
ignored by noisy little girls
in sneakers, red
warning lights flashing
from their heels.
~
At the Music Lecture
The professor stops
her talk to offer
an example, a nocturne
recorded by Koczalski
in the 30’s,
the sound scratchy
and popping, an old 78.
The signer’s hands
hang loosely at his sides;
he cannot summon Orpheus.
The deaf must rely
on changes in the air
to hear the music,
on vibrations
quickening the soles
of their feet. Beethoven
would bite down hard
on a special rod,
the soundboard singing
to his jaw. When
the nocturne ends,
these two resume
their intense duet,
she leaning over
the podium, eager
to explain, words
flying from her mouth
like doves, he,
fingertips flashing,
transforming speech
into bread
until once again
the stylus touches down.
~
Lexicography
My father said waist or shirtwaist
for blouse. A marcelle
was a permanent wave. Like others
home from the war he tried on
foreign terms for us: Bonjour.
Pommes de terre. One word,
consumption, brought sadness
to his voice. Josie died of it,
his big sister who wore crisp white
cotton shirtwaists. His brain
struck out first, tied his tongue.
There would be no final requests.
I took his hand, certain he knew me
by touch, and looked to his dying
while my every cell spoke,
on alert, remembering feelings
a waking daughter could not name.
Like a sneeze, my mother said
of his last breath. Picture
Adam, faced with a terrifying monster
of the deep, unable to name
the unspeakable. I dug deeper
into the sand of no man’s land.
Ribbons on my heart dark as Chauvet.
~
Small Green Room
“Ah, here it is!” says the doctor
of Chinese medicine. “A knot!”
Digging into her side,
he probes and prods
the tender spot.
“What are you feeling?
What have you been living with
for years?”
Her tears wet the paper.
Irresistible victim vibes
mobilize the spider.
Three rapid-fire blows
to her back
shove her deep into the table.
Her body tells her
something’s wrong,
but she says nothing,
the obedient child.
His blue eyes change
into her mother’s.
~
Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, which received the Poetry Society of Virginia Award, Zorba’s Daughter, which won the May Swenson Poetry Award, Moon and Mercury, which won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House competition, and two chapbooks: Troubled by an Angel and Out-patients. Still Life with Timex won the Robert Phillips Chapbook Award and will be published in 2021.Nearly three hundred poems have been published in journals or online. For individual poems she has won, among others, The Ledbury Poetry Festival Poetry Competition (2019), the Gabriela Mistral Poetry Prize (2016), and the University of Canberra’s International Poetry Prize (2015).
Born and raised in Chicago, an alumna of De Paul University, she earned an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University. She has received grants from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, a residency from the Achill Heinrich Boll Association, and a Hawthornden Fellowship. Employed 28 years as a training specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau before retiring in 2005, she has conducted poetry workshops as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia (Falls Church campus) and Johns Hopkins University (Washington Center). She currently resides in Alexandria, VA.