I meet with so many women, sometimes men, but mostly women, who are suffering in painful, heartbreaking relationships. Often I see them watching their other dreams for themselves turn to ashes because they are so distraught with trying to salvage or forget their lost love.
Guerneville Girls
by Anne Hill © 1990
If these were my own kids I’d slap
them silly, and when they came to
me again with putty in their hair,
or quiet walking, fingering a note of
ownership from some boy with the right
shoes, I’d send the wind down at them
first, unglue the stars and decorations
in the gym, throw out the desks and
tables and start delivering babies
there, on the floor. The mothers will
be the kind who curse and rant and
swear to God that man won’t lay another
finger on them, look what he did to
me that bastard, and where is he now?
The girls will unlace their shoes and
slip quickly behind my back to the
river, where they will not be able
to resist the urge to throw off their
slim jeans and wade, murky, to where
the river becomes real, and a threat,
and they will learn to swim against
it as though strength were a good
thing. Then the moon could draw
down into their bellies and meet no
resistance, sliding on through to where
muddy feet stand gripping the banks
of wideness, silt and foam, and
the white track across the water would
be more than chalk on an empty board.