The Door Opens<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I startle
to see my husband
in the doorway,
his spine curving like a birch
in a forest leaning toward the light
or arched like the pillar of a harp.
These days, I lean on him lightly.
Age bends us to its will.
I well up with loving him.
His arms are filled
with birdsong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Trouble<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat under my father\u2019s glare,
my eyes socketed
in fright. I know how it is to not dare swing
your Mary-Janed feet or rest an elbow
on the table or squeak your fork against the plate
or spill milk from the glass in your trembling hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know how it is to squeeze your thighs together
so you won\u2019t wet yourself
when your father bangs on the table,
making the dishes jump
because you couldn\u2019t keep your mouth shut
and he could see the mush while you ate<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or have your mother not say, \u201cOh, leave the child
alone already, will you?\u201d
There is always some trouble
a little girl can make
if a father watches for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Door Opens I startleto see my husbandin the doorway,his spine curving like a birchin a forest leaning toward the lightor arched like the pillar of a harp.These days, I lean on him lightly.Age bends us to its will.I well up with loving him.His arms are filledwith birdsong. In Trouble I sat under my father\u2019s … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":683,"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_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/jan-tinneberg-tVIv23vcuz4-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro\u2019s novel, Miriam the Medium (Simon & Schuster, 2004), was nominated for the Harold U. Ribelow Award. Her poetry has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and she won the Branden Memorial Literary Award from Negative Capability. She currently teaches writing at UCLA Extension.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"