Martha Bernard
Susan Stanley
Edith Farley
James Farley
Nora Harper
Gary Harper
Sean Flynn
Brendan Flynn
Bridget Flynn
Lynette Hall
Brianna Hall
Danny Shelton
We lived together,
long-time companions,
inseparable as sisters.
Ours was a quiet life
from without,
wild and free within,
for none would understand—
how could they know
I gorged myself on your fruit?
You were truer than any lover,
any sister, indeed you were
my other self.
Martha bore it better than I did,
this small-town life.
She was older,
so I always figured she’d go first.
I was left quite alone.
Every day was an empty shell.
In summer the mustard flowers
sparked like pieces of the sun.
In winter the trees thrust their arms
inquiring of the sky.
Ambition did me in—
not mine, but my husband’s.
Never satisfied to sit by the fire
and enjoy what we had—
no, not him: this mad desire
consumed him, not for wealth
(which might have kept us solvent),
but success. First he set up
a hat shop, stocked with pink pill boxes,
feathered creations, and fedoras,
but everyone started going around
bare-headed, and he only sold a couple caps
to old men. Undaunted,
he thought he had invented
a typewriter for the blind,
with braille keys that made letters
when struck. He drove over half the state
trying to sell the idea, but no luck.
A mail-order catalog, plant food—
nothing came through. He even conceived
the idea of a mating service
for farmers to breed their stock,
but only a few chickens showed up
and promptly died. Meanwhile,
I grew accustomed to the laughter
of folks who said I married a failure.
We borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.
All his ambition amounted to no more
than a hill of beans or a child’s dream.
Laziness—sloth, they call it
in biblical terms—
is the greatest sin of them all.
It leads people
to the brainless contentment
of animals, or children
who can’t plan for the days ahead.
Why did I marry a woman
like that? Well, laziness
is a potion for love,
and youth is at home
in those dreamy realms.
But after marriage a man becomes serious,
sets his sights not on a little valley,
but a grand mountain,
wants to make something
from his mind. If she had encouraged
me, if she had but once nursed
my fertile ideas, perhaps
I wouldn’t have looked such a fool,
with my plans always faltering
like a sickly beast.
Moving away
was the biggest mistake,
not my doing but my parents’.
Once I knew Jimmy Stephens,
who could draw the rushes and birds
by the river like a photo,
who held my hands in the dusk,
listened to every word I said
and made me feel good.
His eyes were brown like the water.
Did he become a famous artist?
Did he find the kind of wife
I would have been to him?
How my hopes could have grown
with his love, how different
my days would have flowed!
I can sum up my success
in two words:
plastic parts.
I’m humble enough to know
a salesman is only as good
as what he sells, and plastic
is the best there is.
Do you know how much of a car
is made of plastic
and how much was in 1955?
I’ll tell you, then it was zip,
zilch, nada, now it’s essential:
dashboard, steering wheel, seats,
just to name a few.
The world sure is different
from the place our parents lived.
I was sorry to go. I had just built
a deck by the pool
and never even got to see
the boys and Nora use it.
Couldn’t think of retirement, my dad.
Worked and worked to stave off death
and keep me from being in charge.
The man couldn’t let go
of a dime, couldn’t turn the business he’d built
over to me, his eldest son.
Red-faced and panting, he’d climb
the highest branches, swinging the saw
like Paul Bunyan.
He filled up every room
with his broad chest, restless hands,
all his demands. Unthinkable
that he’d end, yet he clutched his heart
and dropped like a rock
from the old elm at the town hall
while I was going for a sandwich.
The wall I had struggled to scale
all my life had crumbled
but the wide open space
froze me, stupid as a steer.
I only had my own two hands
like my father before me
when he came to this country.
I made these hands
into a company
that had my name.
That name was me
and I was my hands
and I showed my boys
every day that you put your work
behind your word,
you never stop,
you can never be sure
you’ll have enough
and your family and all
depending on you.
It felt like lightning
shot through me
when I dropped from that bough.
I worked
to my very last breath I did.
When you lose your husband
it’s like a whole house
has been torn down
with nothing left.
But then seeds borne on the wind
grow wildflowers
and the long dormant soil
feels the sun
and saplings that had been shadowed
by those massive eaves
extend their limbs in the open
air and light.
My daughter destroyed her life
with drugs. That no-good boyfriend—
why’d she ever take up with him?
My baby was smart as a whip,
and we taught her hard work.
Brianna was made to be better than us.
Getting through those big pharmacy books
was more than I could ever do.
And she ends up sticking needles in her arm
like some good-for-nothing trash.
We raised her better than that.
Did she think she was the only one
to know hardship and pain?
Didn’t her daddy
need muscle rub and ibuprofen and ice packs
to get through the day, working in construction
so long they called him grandpa?
Didn’t my feet and back ache at the end of every shift
moving patients in and out of bed, lowering
them onto the toilet and lifting them off?
Why couldn’t she handle her life?
Life’s made of pain—
mothers squeeze out babies in pain,
work is pain,
old age is pain in all the pieces
that hold you together.
She couldn’t deal with that?
Like she thought she was so special.
She was!
She was special!
My little girl!
Nothing was ever handed to me.
I worked my way through school waitressing
to become a pharmacy tech.
Mom charged me rent after eighteen—
later I got my own place. It didn’t come easy,
but I did it—classifications, compounding,
the whole kit and caboodle to understand
what drugs do to the body.
When I met Danny, he had a new tattoo
of a lion on his arm, still protected by plastic.
He put my name on the other arm. His eyes,
his smile just made me melt.
Then he had the car accident, and the pain
never went away. His prescription ran out,
so I snuck him pills. I tried to be careful,
but the pharmacist caught me
and I lost my job. Danny found other sources,
moved to harder stuff, drew me into it too.
Crouching around the holy flame,
we eased in the needle,
felt the warm waves roll in.
I wanted a life with him whatever the cost.
I thought this would handle our pain.
I did it all for love.
All I remember’s aching for H.
The perfect high’s always in the past.
A dream you can barely describe.
When it’s over, you can’t
sit still, your bones
about to burst
to get it again,
hunting to blunt that hunger.
It filled my brain to the boiling point,
and settled me
down slow,
so slow,
lower,
so low,
but they brought me back
to damp sweat
and shakes,
those blue-suited EMTs
with a jolt of naloxone.
Nobody asked my permission
but they acted like I owed them—
so what, sure, I was back on horse,
my beloved, breaking me
with her beautiful airborne high,
a smooth, a delightful
way to die.
Kate Deimling is working on a collection of poems titled Shades in the voices of the dead in a fictional town. She lives in Brooklyn and is a poetry editor at Bracken magazine. Her poems have appeared in Slant, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Naugatuck River Review, and other journals, and her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026.
