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.
FREESIA MCKEE
Florida International University
I was a little too young to get into parties.
I didn’t have any friends left in the city.
In a southside gyros restaurant
over a red basket of fried cheese, I waited for the glitz to drop
and clapped with the fry cooks at twelve o’clock,
sole customer in a florescent, synthetic booth.
Once, we were girls waiting for the New Millennium.
Our mother always fell asleep early.
Our dad’s house smelled of oven pizzas.
Yeast-dry crusts and toppings
and TV commercials for couches on layaway,
my sister and I entertained our board game friends
with popcorn and red licorice rolls.
Outside, the frozen garden saved
its sweet delights, a cellular dance waiting to sound.
One year, I watched a woman near the bars on Brady Street,
purple heels slipping from white stairs into snow.
One year, I drove to Minneapolis,
brought a bag of red apples home.
One year, I grabbed a woman’s wrist
as she grasped for my purse on the dance floor’s edge.
When the clock romanced Y2K, my sister and I
called our mom from across the county,
oblivious that would-be-apocalypse would be forgotten
after 2001. One year, our dad took us to the home of friends,
people he knew from church who made white chili
chicken soup. We played Brainiac and Clue.
I was a little too young for champagne.
I drank water from a wine glass
with a sparkly charm.
One year, I whispered into the ears of strange men at Mad Planet
Dance Club that my straight high school friends dancing
near them were all lesbians. I told them my name was Eve.
I was a little too young
to know they would pair off anyway, but of course,
it’s what they wanted. One year, I learned how to dance alone.
1.
I am paddling by cattails and lily pads
when he appears with his hair, his unconscious
performance, his shoulders and beard.
He threatens with an “army” of trolls.
He is trying to mansplain gender.
This body
of water does not move. When he clambers
in, he doesn’t use a paddle; he splashes.
In the boat, my clothes grow cold and cling.
The marsh extends from the lake
like a jumble of cords. I try to remember
canoeing Wisconsin without him.
2.
I want to say
compulsory heterosexuality
I want to say
attention-seeking
you have problems with women
I want to say
just go back to the way you filled my iTunes
fourteen years ago with men and guitars
Wasn’t that enough
Leave me alone
Just go back to the barely-there
memory
I didn’t want to go back,
but I did, ferried by a banana-shaped,
moon-in-the-mirror canoe, wishing
to be crescent. Half my life ago, I wanted the boat
to swallow us, folding over
like a wet mouth. I wanted to
descend. I remember wanting
the validation of a boy as my passenger,
but I was not the one switching teams.
He was not the one steering. He insisted
that his way was the right way, the only way,
though water does not follow the rules of the road.
3.
In the arena of competitive
paddling, the bleachers of lurkers
gaze upon us from their rows.
Everyone stares through screens.
This is a public argument, a social
conversation.
4.
I am chewing my nails again.
I plunge them in the freshwater.
Memory is cooling and liquid.
The troll is disappearing; I out-paddled him.
He is gone with his threats and definitions.
I silk my way back up to the put-in,
and with a shiver, I carry out
my boat.
Freesia McKee is author of the chapbook How Distant the City (Headmistress Press, 2018). Her words have appeared in Flyway, Bone Bouquet, So to Speak, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Virga, Painted Bride Quarterly, CALYX, About Place Journal, South Dakota Review, New Mexico Review, and the Ms. Magazine Blog. Freesia is a staff book reviewer for South Florida Poetry Journal. Her reviews have also appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Pleiades Book Review, Gulf Stream, and The Drunken Odyssey. Freesia was the winner of CutBank Literary Journal’s 2018 Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry, chosen by Sarah Vap. Find her online at freesiamckee.com or on Twitter at @freesiamckee.
