Knees to chest, I wait
on a black metal bench
in a late afternoon sunshine
I try to name. Orangey-yellow
Tuscan sunflowers, that summer
twenty years ago. When we
lived on a farm with the kids,
played with geese and drank
wine from the vineyard and
ate gelato every day. And watched
the sun set, a quiet embracing
sun. Close, a whisper promising
gold. A man walks up in navy blue
matching cap and track suit. Says,
they are saying it’s cold, but
I think this is perfect. I nod.
Yes, perfect. My daughter
comes out of a shop and we sit
in the Florida orangey-yellow sun
absorbing the perfect. She says
she likes my look—the
oversized jeans and fitted
black t-shirt. She says too many
years I hid inside, behind. I start
to cry. How true and she only
knows a morsel of the memorized
masks I wore. To fit.
I have spent my life surviving,
I say, gazing at nothing. She
is old enough now to know some
of the sadnesses, I say.
All I wanted was to feel good—in my skin.
But how?
When my skin belonged to men and gods
who made rules I obeyed?
All I wanted was to feel beautiful.
But how when beauty was their justification
for terrorization?
And all I want now is to sit in the sun
burn off the layer of skin—not mine
find my way back inside.
She puts her hand on my arm. We
close our eyes. Grasp the last
minutes of sun making its way to the
horizon.
About the author:
Dr. Tara W. Zafft is most recently Winner of the Moonlit Getaway Poetry Prize. She has published her work in the anthology, Rumors Secrets and Lies, Poems about Abortion, Pregnancy and Choice, Write-Haus, Aether Avenue Press, The San Diego Poetry Annual, Vita and the Woolf Literary Journal, and Dumbo Press. She has a BA in Russian Literature from UC San Diego and Ph.D. in Modern Languages from the University of Bath, UK. In addition, Tara regularly teaches poetry workshops.
Part of our Winter 2025 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through February 2025.
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