Scott Coykendall ~ Three Poems

No one forced me into silence

No one forced me into silence.
I prac­ticed for it on my own, always
con­fus­ing being tired for being done.
In America, what mat­ters most
is that the flow­ers are cheap enough,
flown in from Columbia every morning,
that we can afford to lav­ish them in mounds
at the doors of our schools.

Playback

When I knew can­cer would burn her down, I rushed in
and out of mom’s mem­o­ry, snatch­ing whatever
I could car­ry. “Where do you keep your grandparents?”
I shout­ed, rac­ing past with an arm­ful of recipes
from my child­hood. “Where do you keep your favorite birthday?
your biggest regret? oh shit, where’s the good advice?”

One day, I set up cam­eras on the porch and brought out
a chair and a list of the wrong ques­tions. Through the morphine’s
reed­ed glass, she watched me try to save her life in pieces,
lit­tle piles of words on the grass with labels for each of my siblings
and kids. And even the words were a lot for her to carry.

For my part, I knew I was choos­ing the light over sound.
But know­ing the set–and not just the plot–would go with her, I posed her
so the fields and the after­noon light I want­ed to remember
were over her left shoulder–and in play­back, her white hair is bril­liant
in the sun. But all we hear is the can­cer-fire and the roar­ing prairie wind
scat­ter­ing her mem­o­ries over the lawn. Something, some­thing, paper dolls.
Something, some­thing, was my only dream.

~

 Letters from the dog

I couldn’t wait to take Maya to camp
each sum­mer so I could rush home
to write her let­ters. We had noth­ing to report
–sleep­ing in and mow­ing and eating
what we want­ed when we wanted
made for pret­ty bor­ing news
–it was the chance to be the dog,
the cat, the chick­ens, that excit­ed me.

One year, one of our hens disappeared
in an oth­er­wise slow news week. I told
the whole tale Rashomon style, each creature
blam­ing the oth­ers and The Committee of Concerned Chickens
com­plain­ing I was not fol­low­ing up on leads.
Another year, Biffy McHunk, up-and-coming
teen-idol, moved in next door and wrote to brag
about his impres­sive col­lec­tion of rare
hair-prod­ucts and to let her know he was willing
to be her unre­quit­ed crush.

I don’t know if I amused her. I amused me.
I’m glad she was immersed in camp,
putting on plays, paint­ing, learn­ing sil­ly songs;
glad she nev­er replied to the chick­ens; glad
she already knew absur­di­ty is my love-language
and the let­ters real­ly said, “All’s well, all’s well,
all’s well, and I’m think­ing of you.”

She’s in the city now and still I don’t always know
how to say I miss you but I love your life.
Don’t want to break the No news is…rule.
Can’t admit again my body’s in the shop again
but it’s fix­able again. Doesn’t mat­ter, anyway.
I gave my last stamp to a fly­ing squirrel
who’s real­ly a time-trav­el­ing Nazi-hunter
on lay­over in the attic.

~

Scott Coykendall lives and writes in New Hampshire where he is Professor Emeritus of Communication at Plymouth State University. He taught jour­nal­ism, pod­cast­ing, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion and writ­ing cours­es. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Bowling Green State University. His work has most recent­ly appeared in Black Fox Poetry Magazine, Centripetal, The Cossack Review, Groundwork, Midwest Quarterly, and the New Hampshire Poetry Showcase.