When All Else Fails

by Mary Ellen Gambutti

I waver, sometimes stumble on snags. I encounter hurdles I’m powerless to overcome. When I falter, my frailty is plain to all. Since I’m human, I can recover my footing with love, magic, and even grace.

*

My lifelong passion is to work in life-affirming nature with flowers and green plants that imbue my spirit, strengthen my fiber, inspire creativity, and help me through dark times. I rejoined my center within a good marriage. I embraced the study of horticulture. Strong and able, I happily ran a solo gardening business for fifteen years. Although not perfect, life had purpose among the plants that thrived in varied gardens.

*

A brain hemorrhage struck me one June day of my 57th year. I woke in a West Virginia intensive care unit to absence of feeling and strength on my right side. Dread filled my core, recalling the dire moment I changed into jeans in a tour bus rest room, while stopped at a picnic pavilion as a storm gathered.

The inconceivable weight of my right hand and arm on a crisp white sheet—not asleep: dead. Testing my will, I couldn’t move my right leg, foot, toes. Stroke killed my speech, disrupted clear thought, and blurred my vision. Months of therapies loomed.

I could hold nothing with my dominant hand. No pruning or clipping. No pinching new growth for a fuller plant. No lopping branches for form and shape. There’d be no gardening. No kneeling in friable soil. No bending for a weed. No reaching for a fragrant rose. No staking floppy asters. No planting, hauling, or mulching. No striding, no hiking to summer borders beyond the trees where I’d found joy.

I’d miss the scent and feel of dried grasses, brittle in the fall breezes. The aged, crisped stems, the turgor gone. Or ones that never strengthened— too much shade, not enough wind to batter, sun to nourish, or weeping rain.

I knew I’d either stretch or move—there was no choice—to reach, try to find the strength I’d always had inside, but didn’t always know. I could have acquiesced to tempting, constant, healing sleep. Unless I once again aspired, I would only lie in bed and try to feel, or think I felt. I’d lie and dream I might once again stand, or take a stand, or move my hand. Try, try, and toes might move. And did. Then my foot! I worked, and my therapists and my husband coaxed, “You can do it. You must do it!” Start now, or lose the chance.

My spirit broken, crumbled, fragile and frail, I cried and struggled, even fought myself in anger and wounded pride. Self-pity for what I had become. I could be bitter. Why should I be weak? How could this be?

I turned away when asked, “How do you feel about the weakness?” You can’t possibly understand! You can’t know what it’s like to have nothing. And when the crying ceased, I remembered my toes told their truth of determination. A small thing, but there it was. I learned I could become again. I would find my strength within my soul. Courage. Determination. Not perfect, but able. I hoped and prayed to overcome this trial. I tried, and that made a difference. I would not be a dainty, flimsy flower. Frailty is not this woman. I’m a survivor.

* * * * *

"When All Else Fails" was first published in The Remembered Arts Journal – Frailty Theme (Oct. 7, 2017)

Mary Ellen Gambutti's work is published or forthcoming in Gravel Magazine, Wildflower Muse, Remembered Arts Journal, Vignette Review, Modern Creative Life, Thousand and One Stories, Halcyon Days, NatureWriting, PostCard Shorts, Memoir Magazine, Haibun Today, CarpeArte, Borrowed Solace, Winter Street Writers, Amethyst Review, StoryLand, mac(ro)mic, SoftCartel, Drabble, FewerThan500, BellaMused and Contemporary Haibun Online. Her book is Stroke Story, My Journey There and Back. She and her husband reside in Sarasota, FL. Ibisandhibiscusmelwrites.blogspot.com

Garden Shadow

by Mary Ellen Gambutti

The old Overpeck Bridge once spanned the creek of the same name, before the wetlands were altered permanently by landfill and dredging.  In the spring of 1955, Nana read a classified ad by a man who collected raw peat in his small boat and sold it from a roadside stand at the foot of the bridge. My grandmother aimed to improve the sandy river-bottom soil in her new garden. She brought me along on the adventure. The vendor loaded as many burlap bags of peat as could fit into Nana’s 1953 Caribbean-blue Nash Rambler convertible. I was five, and helped by staying out of the way, absorbing the sights of the one-lane bridge over the lapping creek and the pungent, earthy smell of the peat and meadow. So, I was unwittingly introduced to the importance of organic matter in gardening. In her newly enriched soil, Nana sowed grass seed, which yielded the cool green turf where I would play.

There had been no chance to garden in New York City, where she had lived for about 25 years with Granddaddy, my mom and uncle after moving from their Pennsylvania country home. Nana’s slight 5’2” frame belied her strength and stamina. She brushed her fine, sandy-brown hair, quickly swirling and pinning it into a plain French twist, while standing in front of the large mirror of her mahogany dresser. Always a lady, her plain, soft style was perfect to my eyes. I may have once seen her wearing wool slacks to shovel snow, but never shorts or trousers in the garden. She pushed the rotary mower wearing one of her crisply ironed, hand-sewn summer dresses, the same attire to plant and prune.   

Nana dug foundation and flower beds around the quarter-acre property. With me at her side, she planted yew and hemlock hedges, azalea, rhododendron, and mountain laurel. Soon, there appeared gaillardia and other perennials; annuals like zinnia, cosmos.  Her love affair with hybrid tea and climbing roses flourished. My dad used his new basic carpentry skills to build her a 10’ x 20’ cedar trellis, which stretched along the slate path beside the garage. Red rambler roses covered it every June.

As I shadowed Nana, I became a “dirt under the nails” gardener. While I played among the nursery rows at the farm and garden center, Nana shopped for roses named for Disney characters: Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, and Snow White. “Would you take care of them?” she asked, and I nodded enthusiastically. With our new plants on the rear seat and floor of the Nash, the sweet fragrance of orange, red and white roses, and pots of spicy red, orange and yellow wiry stemmed lantana enveloping us, we returned home to Asbury Street to work in the garden.

Together we planted purple and white petunias, pansies with their cheerful faces, and a mix of evening-fragrant four o’clocks from hard, black seeds. We collected peppery portulaca seeds to save over winter in white envelopes. We carefully dug tulip bulbs in the fall and hung them from the cellar rafter in mesh onion bags. She dug and hung geraniums until spring arrived, urging new growth, and we planted them in the fresh earth.

Nana infused the love of gardening in me, and many years later I would study horticulture and botany, and would operate a small gardening business, renovating, designing and caring for fine gardens. When my husband and I moved to a Pennsylvania mini-farm in the 1990s, my dream of growing perennials and specialty cut flowers for market materialized.

Well into her 90s, Nana continued to garden in patio pots in California, where my family moved when my father retired. Back in her home state after twenty-five years, in the slanting autumn sunlight of my own bountiful Pennsylvania gardens, I wheeled Nana in between tall flowerbeds. She softly complimented me, breathing a relaxed, “Very nice.” She was as happy to be among the flowers as I was thrilled to have her blessing. Nana passed away the following spring at 99. Her legacy is the love of green plants, flower gardens—life, itself. I could have never dreamed of a greater treasure.

* * * * *

"Garden Shadow" was first published in Wildflower Muse. 

Mary Ellen's work is published or forthcoming in Gravel Magazine, Wildflower Muse, Remembered Arts Journal, Vignette Review, Modern Creative Life, Thousand and One Stories, Halcyon Days, NatureWriting, PostCard Shorts, Memoir Magazine, Haibun Today, CarpeArte, Borrowed Solace, Winter Street Writers, Amethyst Review, StoryLand, mac(ro)mic, SoftCartel, Drabble, FewerThan500, BellaMused and Contemporary Haibun Online. Her book is Stroke Story, My Journey There and Back. She and her husband reside in Sarasota, FL. Ibisandhibiscusmelwrites.blogspot.com

Peach

Chapter 2 from Monte Carlo Days & Nights, a novella by Susan Tepper

After dinner we take a stroll through Monte Carlo’s ancient streets.

When we return to the room, I place our breakfast order for the next morning. Would you mind doing that? he had asked me. Of course not, I answered back.

I dial room service and set it up to be delivered at 9 am. He likes when I order him a peach – my calling it a fresh peach to room service. He smiles, fingering his long beard, says how nicely I order and that it makes him happy. It would never occur to me that calling a peach a fresh peach could make a man happy. But, I’m happy to hear that. Because secretly I’m afraid. I’m afraid of most men who have achieved a pinnacle of success that I will never reach. I have just come off a month of cleaning planes. Right in the middle of summer the union airplane cleaners went on strike. We, the stewardesses, became the strike cleaners. The real cleaners broke all the vacuums and destroyed most of the cleaning equipment. We had to drag brooms down the plane aisles and through the seat areas. It’s hell pulling a broom over sticky spilled soda and dry hardened-on food. People smoked on the planes. We had to reach into the little arm rest ashtrays and empty the butts into plastic garbage bags. It was pretty gross. The galleys even more gross. The lavatories the most gross. I wore a mask and rubber gloves when cleaning the lavs. One hot afternoon I had to drive the biffy truck that went under the plane where the toilets emptied. That day I wore a football helmet and mask and goggles and gloves. And a damned good thing. I came out splattered with blue biffy liquid. All too horrible for words. The strikers stood by the runway fence heaving cans and bottles at us. Curses. Then it was all over. Now I’m on the French Riviera. Ordering him a fresh peach. Why don’t you get one too, he says. But not really. He doesn’t say that. I get what I want. It’s assumed. He has arranged a mani-pedi, massage, and mud-masks for us. The day I arrived in Monte, a shopping bag from Hermes sat on the bed. In it was the most gorgeous long silk scarf. He called it my welcome gift. The luxury everywhere here is undeniable. Yet I would have liked him to suggest that I get a fresh peach, also.      

* * * * *

"Peach" is from Susan Tepper's novella Monte Carlo Days & Nights.

More about Susan Tepper and her widely published work can be found at www.susantepper.com.

A Feral Child

            ~ after Charles Simic

by Suzanne Allen

I was born the Thursday before Memorial Day.

This was no accident. Dr. Varga induced labor

so that it wouldn’t interrupt his weekend golf trip. 

I always remember that blood-soaked hour as

having been earlier than it actually was, but at least

the weather was mild and I would not be expected

to walk for nearly a year. After all, we had only just

walked on the moon, and a thirteen year-old named Genie

had spent the last twelve years locked in a bedroom

in a nearby town, strapped to a potty chair, staring

at a yellow raincoat. When discovered—as if

such a girl can, in fact, be discovered—she was all

bunny-walk and sniff, spit and claw. Meanwhile,

I ate well and my mother feared for my figure.

She made me clothes to match her own, and

her brother wrote once from Vietnam—too bad

it’s not a boy! Nixon promised to bring him home

by Christmas after lowering the legal voting age

to 18, but Genie would never be able to vote

and she would be abused for years by foster parents

and researchers. Even I was once harassed

by a dark-haired man in a silver car with red seats.

He was wearing tighty whities and looking

for his wiener dog—Do you know what a wiener

dog looks like? he asked me, and I ran. At about

that same time, Genie retreated into irreversible

silence, refused to open her mouth. “Latch-key kids”

is what they called us when our parents divorced

and our moms had to work and there was only

cold spaghetti to come home to in the afternoon.

She drove a paneled Pinto with jingling hubcaps

and an A.M. radio, sewed small bells into

my petticoats. I wanted to slip into that purple

bottle with Barbara Eden, blink my eyes and

give myself to vapor and sulk, sit cross-legged

in billowing, pink harem pants and wait—

For my dad to come in his shiny new Porsche and

drive me away from the other kids whose fathers

never came, the shy boy around the corner who didn’t

have anything to say.

* * * * *

Suzanne Allen holds an MFA in Poetry and is a coeditor for The Bastille, (of Spoken Word Paris.) Her poems have been published in print and online journals such as Cadence Collective, California Quarterly, Carnival, Cider Press Review, Crack the Spine, Hobo Camp Review, Nerve Cowboy, Pearl, San Pedro River Review, Spillway, Spot Lit, Tears in the Fence and Upstairs at Duroc. Anthology publications include Not a Muse,(Haven Books), The Heart of All that Is (Holy Cow Press), Strangers in Paris (Tightrope Books), Veils, Halos and Shackles (Kasva Press), and Villanelles (Knopf). She also creates videos of poets reading their work, which can be found on YouTube at Vlogosophy. Her first chapbook, verisimilitude, is available at CorruptPress.net, and her most recent chapbook, Little Threats, was published just this summer by Picture Show Press. “A Feral Child” comes from this collection.

Why I Didn’t Report Twenty-six Years Ago, Give or Take

by Suzanne Allen

Because I hadn’t fought. Because

I had only said no and no, and no, and

cried. Because I only twisted under him,

only tried to wrestle my wrists from his grasp.

Because I hadn’t screamed, or kicked.

Because I had only said no

and no, and cried. Because I didn’t want

to talk about it.

Because he was my grandma’s

hairdresser’s nephew. Because

he was an EMT. Because we had

been dating just a few weeks, and

I really liked his friends’

wives. Because I had said yes

before. Because he rode

a motorcycle, fast. Because

he had had more than one serious

crash. His broken nose.

The sometimes wild in his

not-so-clear blue eyes.

I didn’t report until now

because I hadn’t found the words.

I can’t remember the house,

not even where I was living

at the time. I don’t remember

if anyone else was there, or why

I didn’t want to, or if

I stayed the night anyway.

Maybe we had had a barbeque, or

maybe that was a different night.

It was a long time ago, but

believe me: it happened. At first

I tried to forget; now I just try

to imagine he was a good guy,

that he had enough sense to know

what he had done and not

do it again. I hope he didn’t

do it again. I hope he doesn’t…

But it did happen. Believe me.

* * * * *

Suzanne Allen holds an MFA in Poetry and is a coeditor for The Bastille, (of Spoken Word Paris.) Her poems have been published in print and online journals such as Cadence Collective, California Quarterly, Carnival, Cider Press Review, Crack the Spine, Hobo Camp Review, Nerve Cowboy, Pearl, San Pedro River Review, Spillway, Spot Lit, Tears in the Fence and Upstairs at Duroc. Anthology publications include Not a Muse,(Haven Books), The Heart of All that Is (Holy Cow Press), Strangers in Paris (Tightrope Books), Veils, Halos and Shackles (Kasva Press), and Villanelles (Knopf). She also creates videos of poets reading their work, which can be found on YouTube at Vlogosophy. Her first chapbook, verisimilitude, is available at CorruptPress.net, and her most recent chapbook, Little Threats, was published just this summer by Picture Show Press.

GUILT

by Pat M. Kuras

She would ask me

if it was okay

to add brandy

to her ice cream.

Maple walnut,

in the little blue bowl,

part of the set

we bought in Chinatown.

Brandy as ice cream syrup.

Thirty years later,

she still won't

acknowledge her alcoholism.

* * * * *

Pat M Kuras has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She has

a new poem in the upcoming anthology, Dark Ink (Moon Tide Press). Her books, Hope: Newfound Clarity (2015) and Insomniac Bliss (2017) are available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Beyond the Rim

by Oonah V Joslin

Hats

were always worn in church

not out of modesty the pastor said

some ladies of the congregation adorned their heads

as a status symbol to show who had the greatest income

and to hell with the needy and those who sat behind craning to see

beyond the rim of this world,

to the next.

* * * * *

"Beyond the Rim" first appeared in The Shine Journal.

Oonah V Joslin is poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings. She has won prizes for both poetry and micro-fiction. Her book Three Pounds of Cells ISBN: 13: 978-1535486491 is available online from Linnet’s Wings Press and you can see and hear Oonah read in this National Trust video. The first part of her novella A Genie in a Jam is serialised at Bewildering Stories, along with a large body of her work (see Bibliography). You can follow Oonah on Facebook or at Parallel Oonahverse https://oovj.wordpress.com/.