Author: Sandee Gertz

The Homage of a Square

Written by Sandee Gertz. Posted in Poetry.

For here’s a verse in praise of a square:
Mind you, the only one that would, truly,
Waste thy clock & my rhyming verily
What no one would beget or even dare.
I thought I penciled this once & did share 
The ignorance for all; but ‘tween you & me 
I must’ve deleted the irony 
To save thy ears from praises of the square. 

But here’s my praise, not out of ambition 
Or to call those Nine that help the epic,
But for you, O reader, on this angle 

That any verse can have a conclusion 
Out of nothing, to give health or make sick,
To waste lines on the homage of a square.

Consider the Mother’s Mother’s Child Too

Written by Sandee Gertz. Posted in Poetry.

I don’t understand how this happens, why this happens, why the egg doesn’t refuse to leave, stays put, digs in its invisible feet, planted deep in flesh, the mother squawking, the sound piercing, the other chickens looking on, shuffling their feet, pecking at invisible enemies, their eyes twitching as the mother feels blood rush out of her veins, the pain a cloak to pain, the scramble for relief intoxicating, the egg caught in a stupor no one can rescue it from, the wind howling, swirling everything together, a hodgepodge of insanity and biological processes, merging to form this resistance to the other, each eating the other, a futile conflict where nothing wins, nothing brings resolution, nothing forces that egg into the world, a lesson potential parents must learn when their children say they had to choice in this decision, the love not enough to smother the pain the children feel about not wanting to live in a world they didn’t choose.

Concrete Angel

Written by Sandee Gertz. Posted in Poetry.

Growing up a concrete angel, strapped
to the ground in cheap suspenders 
pleasant to a mother’s eyes, how could I not be
terrified that they would snap one day?

Hurling me from this world to the next,
where suddenly I’m arrested 
for abusing clouds, giving heaven 
it’s first black eye. 

This little boy’s heart melted like butter 
as Mama’s fried theology sizzled 
after the preacher’s last burning words
covered the black book in smoke.

A long time ago, it was my favorite. 
I wore saddle oxford shoes 
to keep my feet clean, but was quickly 
redeemed by black patent leather 

tapping my way into heaven’s ghetto 
as if what mattered then
is what matters now. 
I’m still afraid of heights.

His Hunger

Written by Sandee Gertz. Posted in Poetry.

You must have been hungry, 
the one drowsy evening, crickets 
silenced at your closeness. 
You must have been able to 
smell the casserole, 
wrapped in an orange bottle 
in the old woman's bathroom cabinet, 
desire same as thanksgiving dinner, 
parents smacking your wrist 
   	to wait for prayer 
   before you can 
  	eat 
You must have been hungry, 
imagining the white potatoes 
on the bedroom nightstand, 
hands shaking— need calling 
   to crush them into 
  	a powder, 
breathe in the butter 
of mashed potatoes. 
You held your prayer loaded, heavy in your palm, as you broke open the door,
like a can of biscuits, threatened to spill the old woman’s red cranberry 
sauce into floorboards if she didn’t feed you what you wanted. While you 
rummaged through her pantry, taking ingredients used to keep her alive, she 
called the police on you— taking away the kids you left at home with 
strangers that destroy futures. But you knew about that. No one cried when 
you got arrested. You were hungry. They hold their prayers to your head, 
hoping to pull the trigger someday.

Daycare in the Closet

Written by Sandee Gertz. Posted in Poetry.

I search for light in the eye
in her that put me away.
Though, I do not understand why

you lock me in the padded closet, keep me from the sky—
Heat from the static tv, a breathing bane.
I search for light in the eye.

A Blue Bear, Purple Pegasus, and Hanging Jackets I personify.
The repeating of Mickey Mouse VHS tapes is my chain,
Though, I do not understand why.

Mother, let me out— Long hours go by—
I struggle to myself, am I just a stain?
I search for light in the eye.

The door opens and I’m about to cry.
My favorite color, sky blue, but instead I find rain,
Though, I do not understand why.

I was once a Monarch Butterfly.
Mother, why end my reign?
I search for light in the eye,
Though, I do not understand why.

The Water Pistol

Written by Sandee Gertz. Posted in Nonfiction.

My first memory is of my death. I was three, in the grassy area between brown brick garden apartments, where the kids collected. My mother was absent, perpetually absent, and my sister was coming out of one of those apartments after stealing a five-foot-long stuffed animal, a green snake with a forked tongue, like her. Who was I? I had to be terrible, too, but I wasn’t. My grandmother reassured me. She held me while I slept and called me an angel. If I was an angel, I was in the wrong place.

But there I was, looking for four leaf clovers when one of the boys got this look on his face (arched eyebrows, wicked grin). He came at me with a squirt gun, barrel loaded, aimed it up my nostril and shot it. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I fell backward, flat on the grass.

I didn’t know that I had died until I saw a glowing orb in an old man’s hands. I saw an old man’s face. He said to me, “The next sound you will hear will be your own voice.” He placed the orb inside my head gently.

I opened my eyes and said, “What happened?” My grandmother was running smelling salts from nostril to nostril and crying, her talc smelling stronger than what she ran under my nose. My sister stood over me looking like the guy who shot me. That kid had gone.

So sudden. So safe one second and then not. Just a stupid kid. That’s what I tell myself 60 years later. I’ve learned to laugh at myself about the so-called memories that I remember. That involve my sister. That involve mean people wanting me dead. Oh, so funny. The point is I want to tell my sister, is not whether it happened or not, but whether it could. I say, You know what I mean? But she and her snake have wandered off the beaten path of family ties, the ties that choke and gag as my mother used to say, and left me to perpetually ask what happened to no one until I get an answer. And so now, as I see it, God is real. The snake was real, the boy, the out of body. I give myself permission. I make myself promise, Don’t let go yet. I make myself promise, Trust me again. I won’t, I will. Someone has to steer this ship that’s sailed too close to the edge and could go over, again, any time. Any Time! And why do I remember God looking like the Grateful Dead figure? I never did acid.

Most people have nothing to help them exit, stage left. Maybe I imagined him, I guess, and I should give up this fish tail. Ha ha ha. But secretly I remember, “The next sound you hear will be your own voice.” It follows me to bed. I could sleep standing up. But there’s no need.