This post was written by Valerie Loveland about her relationship with Sharon Olds's The Gold Cell. Visiting my Friend from College
Gold Cell I still don’t know what your title or your cover means. Gold Cell you are the first poetry book a friend loaned me and he regretted it. Gold Cell, I am sorry I roughed you up! Gold Cell, how is it possible that you weren’t published the day I was born? Gold Cell, I could only start sentences with Gold and could only end them with Cell. Gold Cell, why didn’t you tell me that men will pretend to like poetry to trick me into believing we could have a poetry life together? Gold Cell I went with them to an arcade and read you instead of playing video games. Gold Cell, I only wanted to talk about poetry my entire talking life. Gold Cell, I used you as a poetry diplomat. Gold Cell, you are thicker than I remember! Gold Cell you are a time machine a nostalgia machine a regret machine a poetry machine an embarrassment machine. Gold Cell, remember my uptight friend who accidentally chose the poem that sexualizes the states to read out loud in class? Gold Cell you name drop my favorite style of dresses to allow me see you even more clearly. Gold Cell, my friend recently told me she didn’t understand why people like you. I had to defend you and didn’t know how. Gold Cell you hide from me on my bookcase with your red cover because I was looking for a gold book. Gold Cell you were such a companion I started calling you Goldie. Goldie you are back in my backpack and I am 19 again and we are both boy crazy. Goldie, I wrote you are back in my backpack but I keep writing “where you belong” and then keep erasing “where you belong.”
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Inspired by Morgan Parker's Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, recommended by Valerie Loveland. The inspiration comes from her title "On Children, How I Hate Them And Want To Corrupt Them, And How You Know I Hate Them, And What That Could Mean". Working With Children Inspired Me To Grow Up And Be Happier Than The Type Of People Who Work With ChildrenWhen i was too young to know
better I loved the people and hated the job Kids who tried to climb me out of their parents’ poverty And parents who paid me mistress money to keep their children out of their schedules There was never just one type of reason to quit Before the degree was a piece of paper It was a life sentence chosen at seventeen when i thought adults only despaired occasionally and that depression was chicken pox It was a teacher we’d nicknamed Princess Thundercloud who taught me to stare like amaretto sour My face part barometer part classified document that everyone suspected they knew the contents of but nobody had actual proof When Princess Thudercloud was pinned under a car And the ambulances arrived on time for her but late for retrieving her students’ now bloodied homework and the list of which children would be picked up by late parents and which would ride home on the bus Parents and teachers ignored the sirens around the but my coworker might be dead apologies And insisted there must be a better system to keep track of their kids And why weren’t we already implementing it? I’d like to think my mother loved me more than paperwork flying away from the broken glass of a woman she only spoke to on conference night But that she’d at least be decent enough to suffer a schedule glitch in a moment of silence for a misfortune bigger than having to leave work early to pick up a son who should've been sent home on the bus I gave up my career to pour coffee A beverage i don’t even drink Managed a wine store Another concoction of capitalism and beverages I had no taste for And quit that too I made a great server Happy at twenty percent but always striving for enough to retire I don’t miss the kids but i miss being the sort of person kids liked Now i push off the heads of strangers exhausted by sitting next to me on buses Never imagine a summer day no matter the heat of my impending future |
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