The Poetry of Marsha Rogers

FORGIVENESS BEGINS WITH REMEMBERING

central valley summer afternoons before the luxury of air conditioning
were the times mothers and daughters called truces laid
on sheets in living rooms under impotent coolers and fans
it was too hot to continue arguments
too dangerous to venture outside too young not old enough
it became a time
of passing on the lore secrets of womanhood
what the daughters knew of sex the mothers would never know
and the mothers did their duty and talked of reproduction pain birth
"If I had to do it over again -- I wouldn't"
the girls knew how much they were loved

ii

she called us "hypocrite women"
an image of what others think she is the sterile being
denied the smoky scent of her own womanhood she grew
from childhood to childhood trained from earliest
days to endure become the handmaiden of political expediency
duped into belief sex without matrimony placed the soul in mortal peril
financial independence a cat dinner alone were failure
only the hypocrisy of sisters
enforced such fantasies of men for she who breaks the patterns
and claims what is hers is ostracized by the liberal-
speaking women who lie in their sterile beds beside their sterile men claim
a usurer's share of a husband's increase idly pet the dog dine
alone five nights a week

iii

in the middle of a contracting world she withdraws
even more they all say "I love you"
but she knows when dark comes she will be
alone in silence with fears
the impenetrable wall has been breeched she remembers
what it had been like
to love belong to someone
anyone
she will never go back
could never
she tests the aloneness a need to call upon herself she knows no one
will stand beside her
it will always be this way she sees her own mortality
has no time for people she does not love or the reluctant
lover

WATERING LOS ANGELES

THE BECKY THATHER POEMS

LINGERING
I remain in your bed
long after you leave.
Your scent remains
and I wish
to take it with me.
I want to take all
about this place
with me --
the sounds,
the sights --
but mostly
the trust
you taught me.
You earned
what none
other has. That,
more than anything,
I will take.