I expected the note: Laurie, I left
for Tulsa. Be good because she’d
been warning Dad of that all year.
Each morning I got up dreading
she’d left us and then wishing
she had when I saw her staring
out the window and she wouldn’t say
a thing to me except Don’t forget
you got Scouts after school.
She wasn’t even with us when she
put supper on the table, indifference
and boredom in the meatloaf she
didn’t eat, smoking her Marlboros
and sipping Folgers instead.
Her note to me was anchored by
a cup of blueberries she’d bought
that day especially for me,
little baubles gleaming still wet
from a rinse of water, the last bit
of motherness she managed.
Author of five poetry collections, two of which won Outstanding Achievement awards from the Wisconsin Library Association, SHOSHAUNA SHY has had poems recently published by Poetry Breakfast, Black Coffee Review, San Pedro River Review, and Cerasus Magazine. Her poem “This Is You in the Sundance Catalogue” was longlisted for the Fish Publishing Poetry Prize 2022, and in 2023, her poem “Not Wanting to Meet My Birth Mother” was a finalist in the annual contest of Naugatuck River Review. Her poems have been made into videos, produced inside taxi cabs, and even decorated the hind quarters of city buses.
Change Seven Magazine 