a girl named jack
by Jacqueline Woodson
Good
enough name for me, my father said
the day I was born.
Don't see why
she can't have it, too.
But the women said no.
My mother first.
Then each aunt, pulling my pink blanket back
patting the crop of thick curls
tugging at my new toes
touching my cheeks.
We
won't have a girl named Jack, my mother said.
And my father's sisters whispered,
A boy named Jack was bad enough.
But only so my mother could hear.
Name
a girl Jack, my father said,
and she can't help but
grow up strong.
Raise
her right, my father said,
and she'll make that name her own.
Name a girl Jack
and
people will look at her twice, my father said.
For no good reason but to ask if her parents
were
crazy, my mother said.
And back and forth it went until I was Jackie
and my father left the hospital mad.
My mother said to my aunts,
Hand
me that pen, wrote
Jacqueline where
it asked for a name.
Jacqueline, just in case
someone thought to drop the ie.
Jacqueline, just in case
I grew up and wanted something a little bit longer
and further away from
Jack.
Jacqueline
Woodson, "a girl named jack" from Brown
Girl Dreaming. Copyright © 2014 by Jacqueline Woodson. Used by permission
of Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of
Penguin Random House LLC.
Source:
Brown
Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014)
^,^
Dee with grandson Mike and granddaughter Melissa
^,^
Janelle
Special birthday greetings
to an avid raccoon reader
^,^
JUST WAITING:
^,^
Just looking for a doormat
^,^
James, steamrollin'
Probably not just for the St. Paddie's revelers
traversing the Five Points
here in downtown Waukesha,
yet the bar merchants must have appreciated it.
^,^
Probably not just for the St. Paddie's revelers
traversing the Five Points
here in downtown Waukesha,
yet the bar merchants must have appreciated it.
^,^
Just dunk
preferably in hot chocolate
box sez "Since 1933"
been eating them all my life
and you know how long that is
(my current screensaver)
(my current screensaver)
^,^
SEWER RACCOON
This poem was written in 2002. Little did we know it was to become the name
of the SRN then. But the seed had hit fertile ground, so that when Lee
suggested that I recover from my heart trouble with a bloggish pastime
and helped launch this effort, the Sewer Raccoon News was fallen upon
for the name. Founded in 2006, the SRN has been going now for 10 years.
While the city sleeps
of the SRN then. But the seed had hit fertile ground, so that when Lee
suggested that I recover from my heart trouble with a bloggish pastime
and helped launch this effort, the Sewer Raccoon News was fallen upon
for the name. Founded in 2006, the SRN has been going now for 10 years.
While the city sleeps
(a redoux)
Waukeshans complacently enjoy their town-grown-to-city
With it’s well-policed, clean, safe streets
And the cerulean blue skies overhead;
Or when it rains
The rain washing everything anew and flowing
Away like dirty bathwater down the drain
Out of sight, out of mind; oh yes,
We think of everything and take for granted
That the solid terra-firma plane on which we work and play
IS as storybooked as it appears
And that the sky overhead here is relatively terrorless
That covers two of the three physical dimensions
But we never think about the seething subterranean world
Beneath the city where that dirty bathwater flows
Unless we happen to be with the Sanitation Department
And as far as I know, they aren’t talking;
My friends, we co-exist over a nether-world
About which we never think
And the Sewer Raccoons down there - that’s right - count on our ignorance;
Their profligacy festers beneath us
Growing daily, like whiskers becoming a dread-locked beard
But we don’t know it because we trust in our local government
And in what we see
The coons, woe to us! phantoms of this opera are
Just a few feet beneath Waukesha
Until nightfall when every storm grate at every corner
Becomes an open doorway into our elysian yards and gardens;
Marauders on velvet paws which they keep licking, masked,
They steal about under cover of nocturnal shadows, late,
When the windows of our proud houses show black;
It’s then the Sewer Coons take over the town; by day,
These slick creatures have free rein in their underworld
Bartering our garden produce in little shops and bazaars
In their sub-city
Where they swarm and reproduce like rabbits;
They have their own school district where all the little coons
Study burglary and ankle-nipping;
So far they are content with their lowly position, hence,
The Sanitation Department, the Mayor and the Aldermen
Only monitor them and do not tell us of their spreading presence
An Amos or a Paul Revere I send this warning
For I live nearer the Fox River in one of the town’s ruder huts
And the Sewer Coons are, though proliferating
Concentrated only in our poorer neighborhoods at the present time;
By the railroad tracks and the Fox River waterway,
But the storm sewer web is beneath us all, free and accessible
And even now no one is safe
I have again lately seen the coons emerge from the grate at our corner
As has my wife; we know the desolation
Of having our grapes stolen from our vines;
We’ve actually heard the coons’ little “chick-chick-chick” sounds;
Close-up, we’ve seen the phosphorescent reflection of their eyes
In our flashlight beams; they run, are not brazen yet – oh, no -
Carrying little bindles over their hump-ed shoulders
And make their dash back to their grated holes,
Furred hit-and-run warriors, in place,
Waiting for their messiah to come, perhaps from Milwaukee or Chicago
The Really Big 'Coon, to marshal them into an invading army,
Meanwhile waxing stronger in secret on grapes and sacked left-overs;
And sometimes we think we can hear muffled “tink”s
As they pound on their tiny anvils under Arcadian Avenue
Making suits of armor on foot-pumped forges; flaring
Light seems to flash from the gratings after the clock has struck twelve
And I go out and listen at my corner sewer entrance
And hear their “YO-OH, HO HO!” chants
Echoing softly up from below;
The Sewer Raccoons are coming, the Sewer Raccoons are coming!
[D. Zep Dix 9-19-2002]
^,^
NEXT WEEK
Kraft Dinner (KD)
.....
IN TWO WEEKS
A new use for an Amish straw hat
A new use for an Amish straw hat
