The Tookany Review

Dark haired fighting lady
you resisted at first,
then floated gently
to the siren songs
of your clan
who wanted their
Cara to dance
in the Halls of Valhalla,
a reward
for a life that ended with
too many tragedies
for a farmgirl from Norway.

America:
too fast
too forward
too hard
too full of jazz
twelve too many rhythms floating into
one long stream with banks
that overflowed.

There was nowhere a girl like you
could call home,
could cup in your milkwhite hands
a single drink of pure water,
Nowhere to go.
Lost in America.

Your prince was not what he seemed
the two of you battled
like Vikings
each solaced by blood-red wine,
your young son
fleeing from home
while his parents’ shrieks
shook the farmhouse walls
shook his little boy’s love.

Between your blackouts
blurry-eyed
with all that was left of you,
God’s Lost Daughter,
you and your prince
bought your boy a piano
and heard him from the kitchen
play

heard him play
and looked at one another
for the very first time.

Despair transcended
in chords that pierced
your heart
chords that sang out
to the midnight stars
and grew like trees
to the Minnesota skies.

You saw him, Cara,
saw your boy
rise to the stage
and marry a girl who
kissed your Snow-White cheeks and
said, I love you.

You gave your boy a piano,
you gave him a home
you gave him a soul.

Ruth Z. Deming is a psychotherapist and executive director of New Directions Support Group for people with depression, bipolar disorder and their loved ones. She was named 2007 Runner-Up Montgomery County Poet Laureate.

At this time, The Tookany Review is accepting only the work of writers who are enrolled or have been enrolled in
Cheltenham Adult School writing workshops.
For more information about writing workshops offered by the Cheltenham Township Adult School, contact:
Cheltenham Township Adult School
1414 Panther Road
Wyncote, PA 19095
Phone: 215-887-1720