STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
CHRISTINE POTTER
Always, wallpaper from the 1930’s—faded green and coral,
lush with blowzy roses and garlands—gets a good laugh
before it’s smashed into dust, fuzz tone guitars wailing.
Someone jumps feet-first right through it. The oak trim
someone else’s mom lemon-oiled on a teetering stool
is too much wood. Paint it all white. Tear out the absurd
basement toilet her husband visited every morning with
his cigar and newspaper, undisturbed by its lack of walls.
Sledge hammer the black and white tile upstairs, blow out
a bedroom, install white marble and glass. Tell a lie: no one
ever lived here. Or cried herself to sleep. No one shattered
a pitcher of iced tea on the kitchen floor and was forgiven,
instantly. No one ever, homework done at last, eased into
the bathtub with curly script on its HOT and COLD faucets.
No one’s grandmother washed her back with a warm cloth
and fragrant, transparent glycerin soap. No one ever died.
Christine Potter is a poet and novelist who lives in a very old house in the lower Hudson River Valley. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Rattle Poets Respond, Eclectica, Mobius, and been featured on ABC Radio News. Her most recent collection of poems, Unforgetting, is about her family and her mother's dementia. Her time traveling novels, intended for young adults but sometimes read by old ones, too, are on Evernight Teen. The series is called The Bean Books, and the most recent installment is Gracie's Time.
