Oh Shoot! (Poem written n / o / w)

Stephanie Holttum*

Oh Shoot!

It's so long 
since I posted here
I'm just going to
chance it
and write a few thoughts
which means
translate.
I am translating 
as I type 
strike that
typing my translation
of the sensory volume
in my stomach.

Two days I edited
pharmaceutical
advertising for AIDS
meds and that was
good as long 
I thought about Good
and not Death
or Profits. 
Late afternoon
the office was 
hot enough
to bake gingerbread.
Why gingerbread
people?  
They're fragile but
cheery and sweet.

Today I put in
more time with a
new story
the third about
Berthe whose parents
were killed in jail.
She's large
and a dyke who
teaches lit.
This one began
in L.A. then flew to
("one" = story)
 San Francisco.

"Lillia" is a 24/7
Seattle story
published in
Devil's Lake.  
The devil does have
lakes as I recall.
We've all taken
the tour. 
Berthe's deal ia
she figures out
(never stated)
she is always 
working out her
parents' insanity.
Like I'm always
working out my mom's.
The Christian Scientist
who fostered cancer
for twenty years and
then things got worse.
Your body doesn't forget
but it is busy with
circulation of the blood
through the heart and
lungs and elimination
of toxins.  
The body has a to-do
list the length of
its intestines and is
busy night and day.

It was nice to have
a feeling
and know the lurch
was something old
and no longer
impossibly painful
but kept alive just like
I am by the flow.

Is this a poem?
I don't know.
Sometimes I want 
to tell poets
they can't just lineate
thoughts and 
events and call it
a poem.  
I'm not calling this
a poem I'm calling it
a blog posting
written in a free 
moment between
jobs and as a
marker to the fact
that today 
I felt something old
and it was okay.
_____________
Sarah Sarai, November 14, 2012


*For more information on artist Stephanie Holttum, please visit http://www.thurstontalk.com/2012/01/21/a-visit-with-artist-stephanie-holttum/.