Return of the American Tough Girls
April 27, 2014…
to Geralynn and Ann
One Elementary
My childhood toys were words.
In awe of snow,
I loved the brown sparrow.
On the edge of the tallgrass,
a blank page appeared in the clouds.
Meltwater covered the fields,
mud sucked at my shoes
and boots. My pen uncovered
mustard seeds in the ice
and beads buried in the road.
I received a tiny apron
for my first revisions.
Two Elementary
I nearly lose my shoes in mud.
At last I reach a gravel road
and then cement. On the horizon—
a choir in the meadow? Torn
from acres of khaki and the grass
where men and fields suffer,
page one has a drawing of a heart.
Soon, highway reaches LA
and the girls hitch a ride.
What is Colorado, Arizona, Idaho?
Directions lost and the air polluted,
help me, I am writing.
Three Elementary
Tossed from a car window, an alphabet
falls with the weather to the street.
I know how an “a” sounds—aah,
or the long “a” of germination.
After my death, if a sheaf of wheat
on my gravestone is made of pixels,
trust me, when it disappears,
metaphor reaches the cloud.
To sustain the poet, sisters offer
their share of familial nouns and verbs.
Ecstatic to discover sound,
in English, repeat “the girls are alive.”
-Elizabeth Krajeck (Marion County)
Elizabeth Krajeck, Indianapolis, is the Community Writer for Butler’s Center for Citizenship and Community, created to link academic experience and community service. She is the author of two chapbooks and owner of Permanent Press, Writers and Editors, an occupied bungalow business.
Indiana Humanities is celebrating National Poetry Month by sharing a poem from an Indiana poet every day in April (hand-selected by Indiana Poet Laureate George Kalamaras). Check in daily to see who is featured next!