Susan Mahan
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Dry Spell

It's hard to define drought,
though Lord knows there's one happening
somewhere in the world this very minute!

A drought could mean no rain for months.or longer:
no water for flowers,
no moisture to germinate seeds for crops;
no condensation to fog up your glasses on a moonlit night.

Everything becomes parched,
like that Dust Bowl in the 1930's.

Yep.

Life sure is a great big dust bowl sometimes.

Leaves a woman with nothing but dry husk dreams.

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Getting Lucky

When I was a kid, getting lucky meant
finding a four leaf clover,
discovering a dime on the street,
having your teacher be absent on the day of a big test.
It wasn't associated in my mind with winning the lottery
or not getting hit by a bus.
It certainly had nothing to do with sex.

The luck of the Irish notwithstanding,
relying on fate seems random and capricious.
I've lived most of my life on the straight and narrow.
I put my whole heart in my marriage.
I can still remember how my husband
would raise his eyebrows devilishly once in a while
and ask if he were going to "get lucky" that night.
I'd tell him luck had nothing to do with it.

I play by rules and have put duty and common sense
ahead of desire for most of my life.
I can't relax and just have fun.
I never learned to dance;
I can't put lipstick on straight;
I can't parallel park.
Well, OK, that doesn't fit with having fun.
But, I never learned it,
and I've had to replace more tires and hubcaps
than I care to admit.
I really need a change.
I might have to break a rule or take a chance.
I could always adopt my son Michael's philosophy in LA,
where he claims, a red light is just "a suggestion."
I'm willing to give it a try, but
I'm hedging my bets.
I bought a framed four leaf clover.
Nothing can stop me now.

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Laboring

In a family of farm hands,
he chose to be a teacher.

His brothers donned overalls every morning
as he buttoned the cuffs
of his starched white shirt.
At supper,
they could list the chores
they'd finished that day:
the cows milked,
the chickens fed,
the eggs collected,
the acres plowed,
the bales of hay stacked in the barn.
His brothers were bone tired, and their muscles ached.
Sometimes, they chided him about what he did all day.

He was a teacher.
He moved mountains without lifting a finger.

I know.
I was his student.

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Published in Volume 5, Spring/Summer 2001
of The South Boston LiteraryGazette.
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Kid Gloves

When I was twelve years old,
Nana gave me
my first pair of leather gloves.
She called them kid gloves
and said they were the best.

They were supple and soft.
They were wonderfully scented.
They were lined with cashmere.


When my husband died from leukemia,
people treated me with kid gloves,
but it didn't help a bit.

I still bled from every pore.

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to more of Susan's poetry

©2002 Susan Mahan email