ham o rama!
i meant to do some early editing on my bigbang today, and instead i wrote the author's note and thought about next year's bang. >.< not what i planned, but i like the idea i have for next year, and author's notes are always fun. more people should write them for their bangs. one of the people sitting at the next table had a tattoo on their ankle that looked a lot like a skillet with two fried eggs in it. it was so random and cute.
all the deli ham was on sale at the grocery store, and the little signs for each of the hams proclaimed it as "ham o rama". hee.
i can't believe tomorrow is may. i have one last poem for april. i enjoyed posting them, so i hope you enjoyed reading them.
I loved the things that were ours - pink gloves,
hankies with a pastoral scene in one corner.
There was a lot we were not allowed to do,
but what we were allowed to do was ours,
dolls you carry by the leg, and dolls’
clothes you would put on or take off -
someone who was yours, who did not
have the rights of her own nakedness,
and who had a smooth body, with its
untouchable place, which you would never touch, even on her, you had been cured of that.
And some of the dolls had hard-rubber hands, with
dimples, and though you were not supposed to, you could
bite off the ends of the fingers when you could not stand it.
And though you’d never be allowed to, say, drive a bus,
or do anything that had to be done right, there was a
teeny carton, in you, of eggs
so tiny they were invisible.
And there would be milk, in you, too - real
milk! And you could wear a skirt, you could
be a bellflower - up under its
cone the little shape like a closed
buckle, intricate groove and tongue,
where something like God’s power over you lived. And it turned out
you shared some things with boys -
the alphabet was not just theirs -
and you could make forays over into their territory,
you could have what you could have because it was yours,
and a little of what was theirs, because
you took it. Much later, you’d have to give things
up, too, to make it fair - long
hair, skirts, even breasts, a pair
of raspberry colored pumps which a friend
wanted to put on, if they would fit his foot, and they did.
--Sharon Olds, "Ode of Girls’ Things"
all the deli ham was on sale at the grocery store, and the little signs for each of the hams proclaimed it as "ham o rama". hee.
i can't believe tomorrow is may. i have one last poem for april. i enjoyed posting them, so i hope you enjoyed reading them.
I loved the things that were ours - pink gloves,
hankies with a pastoral scene in one corner.
There was a lot we were not allowed to do,
but what we were allowed to do was ours,
dolls you carry by the leg, and dolls’
clothes you would put on or take off -
someone who was yours, who did not
have the rights of her own nakedness,
and who had a smooth body, with its
untouchable place, which you would never touch, even on her, you had been cured of that.
And some of the dolls had hard-rubber hands, with
dimples, and though you were not supposed to, you could
bite off the ends of the fingers when you could not stand it.
And though you’d never be allowed to, say, drive a bus,
or do anything that had to be done right, there was a
teeny carton, in you, of eggs
so tiny they were invisible.
And there would be milk, in you, too - real
milk! And you could wear a skirt, you could
be a bellflower - up under its
cone the little shape like a closed
buckle, intricate groove and tongue,
where something like God’s power over you lived. And it turned out
you shared some things with boys -
the alphabet was not just theirs -
and you could make forays over into their territory,
you could have what you could have because it was yours,
and a little of what was theirs, because
you took it. Much later, you’d have to give things
up, too, to make it fair - long
hair, skirts, even breasts, a pair
of raspberry colored pumps which a friend
wanted to put on, if they would fit his foot, and they did.
--Sharon Olds, "Ode of Girls’ Things"