Squaretable Seminars

She didn’t need balls
to catch one, or to run from base
to base like you guys
thought. The second
time she wore the uniform
you knew she wouldn’t drop out.

You couldn’t figure that out,
or how the balls
she threw made it the uniform
distance to the base.
She pushed every second
to prove to you guys

that she was one of the guys
on the field. But out
there you didn’t give her a second
thought, threw the balls
past her to a different base.
The orange-striped uniform

didn't look too uniform
on her chest, and you guys
made bets for which base
you could get to without
a knee to your balls
to knock you down for a second.

She played second
without a cup in the uniform
to protect her from stray balls
like you guys
had to wear, and she stuck out
her ponytail at the base

of her cap. But every base
she rounded was a second
too late, every strike-out
a shame to the uniform;
of course none of the guys
dropped that many balls.

She finished out the season and turned in the uniform.
The second summer came, but she didn’t want the guys
to base their comments again on whether she had balls.


© Hannah Walleser

8th

We were taking a test,
something stupid like math
or German maybe,
and the teacher walks out.
I’m concentrating pretty hard
but Joe reaches in his pocket,
pulls out this rubber ball
and starts bouncing it.
It’s quiet but it annoys me,
and then one bounce
sends it flying over the half-wall
into the principal’s office.
Everybody looks up then
and Joe zips on over to the window,
opens it and jumps out.
Well of course the principal
rounds the corner
and wants to know
whose rubber ball this is,
but nobody says anything.
And here comes Joe
in from the hallway,
says he was in the bathroom.
Brilliant.


2 ½, 40

I headed out on the river
with Hannah in tow
on the ice fishing shack.
Nancy had her bundled up
in scarves and sweaters
and snow pants.
We hiked out around
the bend over there
and I drilled a couple holes.
I gave her the scoop
to keep the ice out
and we talked.
Ten hours later
we went back home.
She’d just been potty trained.
and was embarrassed
that she’d had to pee her pants
because it was too cold.
Even Nancy couldn’t
settle her down.
She’s only two.
It was good to spend
some time together
before we can’t.


2008

Sue saw a spirit
in the pew next to us.
He had brown hair
and a blue checkered shirt.
After Mass Mom showed
her an Easter picture
when we were babies.
The same man stands,
arm around our mom.
We talk about this
on the porch steps
of the Legion Hall.
The kick to an x-ray
bounces down from
the boys at karate practice.
Sue pokes her head up
the staircase ready
to say something smart.
She stops mid-step
and hurries back over.
There are people
dressed up for dancing
in that stairwell
who know they’re dead.


5¢

There used to be a school
here in Harpers, you know;
that’s what the gym’s from.
There were two stores,
and the river business
and, well, there was more.
Oh, this town
was just a hoppin’.
Every Saturday night
there'd be a dance
up in the Legion;
‘course that’s where we
store the old drums now
for Memorial Day.
Hell yes, this place
was something, I tell you.
We’d get all done up
and go out together.
Now anybody ever does
is meet up for coffee,
but I s’pose that’s
all we can do now
that we’re old
and not too pretty, hey?


© Hannah Walleser

she sits on a lunchroom bench
. dips a spoon in pudding
he looks over
. catches her eye


she takes a smooth mouthful
. twists it upside-down
he forgets
. what he was saying


she half closes her eyes
. opens them full back at him
he knows
. what that look is


she lets the tip sit at her lips
. swallows
he smiles
. walks over


© Hannah Walleser

“Back then even the good girls got dizzy”
DIZZY GIRLS IN THE SIXTIES – Gary Soto


We left the avisos of our madres españolas in our house shoes,
Thoughts of early billetes and bottles of agua faded,
And we nearly skipped west along the calles.

We went to Trujillo on the morning autobús,
Dragged around bocadillos of jamón and oranges
And sipped from cans with nickel-thick bottoms.

We took bites out of the ripe queso, the fuzzy manzanas,
The tortilla española that is not made with flour,
And threw the rest away in a plastic bag.

We sat on pitted concrete and fished out our dulces,
Drank milk-juice from the aluminum-insided cartons,
And its sabor paraíso escaped in dribbles with our laughter.

We modeled like true turistas around the square’s tiendas
While Pizarro sat like a patron saint atop his caballo,
And pigeons circled his head to drop a white crown.

We evaded guides that spouted moreno history like faucets,
Tried on the acento of stone walls with glass barbed wire,
And pulled our necks around every corner with a good vista.

We discussed the trabajo for class and headed back east,
Digested the vino and the cultura as the spotted land passed,
And then thinned out in parejas for the walk home.


© Hannah Walleser

Four years ago
I slipped on a nightie
and lay down
next to a bronzed youth.
I shut my eyes
that were so heavy
with purple crescents,
as if to sleep.
Something curled up
like a whisper
by my bare feet
and breathed heavy.
When I tucked my knees
like a small child,
it resettled
in my arms.
Slivers of moon
shifted silent
beneath the curtains,
my back oval
as an egg.
I thought of us
in limbo
the last months,
and that murmur
pressed deeper
into my chest
and whined.
A minute more,
and it blinked
and suffocated
at my breast.
To that I wept
and slid
away from the stud boy,
with the thing
doubled over at my ribs
like a voice
cracking.


© Hannah Walleser

Things accumulated at our house,
the house of the brats,
three redheaded kids,
things like bats.

Sometimes
we noticed a dark spot on the ceiling
not quite the right shape
to be a knot in the wood.

When we were little
Mom doled out the butterfly nets.
We shrieked in terror and excitement
and jumped when it did.

I bet she was just glad
we were amused
and that she didn’t have to catch it
on her own.

How absurd to see
pajama-ed kids
chasing after a squeaking nightmare
like it really was a butterfly.

The flapping thing
ended up outside on the porch
and Hans Joseph and I back inside
heaved shut the door.

John Henry with his hammer
whacked that thing,
whooped and hollered like a madman
‘til it was flat.

Mom loaded it up
on the tulip-planting shovel
and flung it over the road
to the dead corn field.

The four of us
then settled back on the sofa
in the living room
in peace.


© Hannah Walleser

I went to two of the readings during the Wildness Symposium: Mosaic Finding Beauty in a Broken World with Terry Tempest Williams on Saturday and Blood Dazzler with Patricia Smith on Sunday.

Terry Tempest Williams opened with the theme word empathy. She read a letter from a fellow writer to her friend whose 27 yr old daughter had committed suicide this week. The most striking words I remember are “Sing… sing silent if you must, for finally, there are no words.” Then she began reading excerpts from her book, about hearing the word mosaic when her heart was searching for guidance, apprenticing in Italy the trade of mosaics, and working with her hands to form something new out of something broken. She read some and spoke some, a very balanced and meaningful switch between the two forms of sharing and explaining her experience.

There were three major topics: prairie dogs of Utah and how, if they disappear, who will cry for the rain; the survivors of the Genocide in Rwanda and finding a way to properly memorialize and provide burial for the murdered families; and her “adopted” son Louie. In one passage Louie, her translator while in Rwanda, tried to describe what it was like to interpret; he said it was more than words, something like creating a space for two hungers for understanding to come together. Another powerful insight was that he noticed the children in the streets, without opportunity, but waiting to be transformed. She very easily tied everything into the meanings mosaic and empathy.

Patricia Smith opened her reading with a poem about her 6th grade class from Miami Dade County, Florida; their straightforward knowing that they each know someone who’s dead, and their eagerness to learn how to write poetry that somehow can help them with the losses. She then read a more lighthearted poem about her and a friend discovering the Louvre in all their American-ness. Then she read from her book about Hurricane Katrina. She also had three main themes: the personification of Katrina, slowly learning her body and quickly becoming a terrific woman; the dog Luther B; and some of the victims of the storm including the 34 nursing home residents.

She read poem after poem with a minimum of explanation in between. What I like best is that she really embodied her poems and their individual narrators and she really performed them like they were alive. She gave a voice to the devastation so that people can begin to make themselves aware of the events. By imaging these real people, developing their hell through believable characters she allows readers and listeners to feel a sliver of truth that wasn’t shown through the media.