{"id":398,"date":"2018-09-28T02:13:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T02:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=398"},"modified":"2018-08-20T03:41:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T03:41:47","slug":"single-women-in-threes-by-travis-stephens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2018\/09\/28\/single-women-in-threes-by-travis-stephens\/","title":{"rendered":"Single Women in Threes by Travis Stephens"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Travis Stephens was raised on a dairy farm. He earned a degree at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, before departing for the West Coast. Stephens became a sea captain and now resides in California. He has been published in the Upriver anthology, NOTA, Stoneboat Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Havik, and Pennsylvania English. His was a Poem of the Week for Silver Needle Press and other work will appear in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature the winter of 2018.<\/em><\/h6>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Single Women in Threes<\/h3>\n<p>watching three women drink coffee<br \/>\nseated outside<br \/>\nbeneath a summer awning<br \/>\nbright one in black lace<br \/>\nblouse might be mother,<br \/>\na straw hat, purple lipstick<br \/>\nthe daughter in a jean jacket<br \/>\nline of turquoise studs along<br \/>\nthe curve of upper ear,<br \/>\nthat color of black hair that<br \/>\nshines dark blue. Eyes too.<br \/>\nHer friend a<br \/>\ncurly swirly brown girl<br \/>\nwith serious<br \/>\njudgmental brows<br \/>\nthat speak of promise,<br \/>\nof promises questioned for lack of detail.<br \/>\nSingle women in threes<br \/>\nin the shadow of an elm,<br \/>\nbeneath the silent orb of a<br \/>\ncamera set to watch the<br \/>\nsidewalk strollers,<br \/>\nfurtive pigeons and me.<br \/>\nThe little sister of my first wife<br \/>\nhad hair black as thought,<br \/>\neyes too, led groups of<br \/>\nSwiss visitors through the<br \/>\nNew World wonders of America.<br \/>\nThey teased her, of course, and<br \/>\nshe answered in perfect Bernese,<br \/>\nuntil they pressed phone numbers<br \/>\nof grandsons and nephews to her.<br \/>\nAlas, she married in Wisconsin<br \/>\nand soon divorced.<br \/>\nShe comes to mind for the way<br \/>\nshe wore her hair in<br \/>\nloose curls, waves and smiles.<br \/>\nNot like this one under the awning<br \/>\nwith her fierce bangs<br \/>\na straight line cut into my heart<br \/>\nwhile she, her mother and even<br \/>\nher friend looks casually away.<br \/>\nBuses wait and kneel.<br \/>\nCars touch the curb.<br \/>\nLike the camera I will watch<br \/>\nand do absolutely<br \/>\nnothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Travis Stephens was raised on a dairy farm. He earned a degree at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, before departing for the West Coast. Stephens became a sea captain and now resides in California. He has been published in the Upriver anthology, NOTA, Stoneboat Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Havik, and Pennsylvania English. His was a Poem &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2018\/09\/28\/single-women-in-threes-by-travis-stephens\/\" class=\"excerpt-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-6q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}