Author: Kay Kennett

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in English and Women’s & Gender Studies from Wheaton College (MA). There, I published several poems in the campus literary magazine, Rushlight, performed in poetry readings and slams, and won the Helen Meyers Tate Memorial Prize for Original Verse. Additionally, I published in the online magazines Curbside Splendor and Atticus Review. In my early adult life, I have not pursued creative writing professionally, but rather landed in the field of Marketing & Communications, writing outreach and educational content for nonprofit organizations and schools. I am very involved in civic and community activities, particularly within Education and the Arts. I currently teach enrichment classes to K-5 students, tutor high school students in English/Language Arts, and manage social media and email marketing for a handful of nonprofit and small business clients. Find my full worker identity at LinkedIn. Some other identities that are important to me: only child, child of a single father, working class, tenth-generation (New England) American, first-generation college graduate, living with mental illness, bisexual. Thank you for reading.

The Afterglow

.Reading time 1 minute.

The sun had come down, but not out.
It was the bulb of a projector, casting

cool, blue light from its core; except for
lacking an electrical cord.

Where did the heat come from— 
that changed the surface of the moon
from swiss cheese to a flat screen,
capable of displaying our vitals?

A reddish tinge across your cheeks
told the answer. It was 100 degrees,
and counting down from the minute
you walked up, and I could imagine
the peak.

We were sitting close to each other,
under the pretenses of just wanting
to share a large popcorn and soda.
You hadn’t had sugar in six weeks.

An hour after it happened, I joked:
“The vision of you undoing my laces
may be my undoing. Oh, so delicately,
your fingers untwined the knots.”

Now, several days after it happened,
I have exhausted the limit of images
on the “beauty of tight binding,”
pretending an interest in macramé.

I have laid the first and only move
in single player Cat’s Cradle,
betting on you to pinch my Xs
into the Jacob’s Ladder.

So, what do you say? Let’s play
until the sun comes down,
and the afterglow fades, or at least
until we have run out of shapes.

With luck, perhaps, thereafter.

I Know Why the Grass is Green

.Reading time 1 minute.

 

When we first met, you were fifty-three,
And not yet retired from ploughing;
Still, your itch to get out was stronger
Than the bite of briers or holly,
And the 2-for-1 gloves strong enough.

Called in from the garden, you sank
Into the sofa, a green velour piece
That needed no breaking in, steeped
As it was in smoke and grit;
You immediately felt at home.

Beside your son, stoicism failed.
You experienced his joy and purpose
As one, loving me like it was 1969,
Back when pastels were for babies,
And also for everyone else.

Once held, I met your gaze, hoping
To uncover something borrowed,
Myself reflected in your blue,
And found proof that eye color
Can skip a generation, or two.

My other inheritances include:
Your quietude in conversation,
How you walked the periphery
Of the pool, before jumping in
Good humor to ripple the room.

Your special consideration of lilies
And Queen Anne’s lace,
How you saw her in everything
That she would have loved,
And each time fell to pieces.

Your indelible softness.
How you mellowed with age,
They say, like Jell-O, or a plum
In the sun – a prune? Wrinkled,
Yes, but stronger for it.

When we last met, you were seventy-three,
And not yet retired from ploughing.

Persephone

.Reading time 2 minutes.

My therapist asked me to write a letter to you, not to send, but to put at the back of the silverware drawer.

Eventually, we hope that I stop looking for you there—
in my upside-down reflection on a spoon;

and learn to separate my body image from your body.
It has been 20 years, yet I still carry this image of you

in stepmother’s kitchen,
playing at the “Don’t touch!” stove,
by no rules about sugar;
cracking eggs, stirring batter.

Not even a sugar high could redeem this grown-up day.
There is cake in the break room, and singing:
“I really shouldn’t eat this, but” harmonized with
“You’re so thin, how did you do it?”

without her knowing,
you licked the bowl
with measured sensuality
and unconscious desire.

And there’s still something sensual about feeling the weight
of an egg in my hand, holding the threads, like the tail
of a blackhead, longer than they’re meant to be held onto;
until the white slips through my fingers,

and all that’s left is the yolk of it. The heaviest part
of letting go is accepting everything just as it is,

and waiting— for a soft boil,
you dropped your hard-
-shelled heart
and a hint of vinegar.

And I still use bitterness to cope with my cracking,
tasting for your buttermilk skin,
porous as a pancake;
its texture is impossible to reconcile.

It has been 20 years, yet I still struggle
to embrace the absoluteness of your body
becoming my body,
and hold the shell of you up to my face.

Imperfect Produce

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, it is the moldy strawberry
At the bottom of the basket. Full of beans,
I pick a peck more, and jump. Inside,
There is a moth developing, a roly poly
Now, and brown, but aspiring to gray,
If only for a few days, at summer’s
End, when the first cool, but frostless
Night ushers in the red and purple
And blackened fruit, which one (?)
Should not eat. I am not one.

They tell me to be she, who sheds
Her coat, and waits for the foliage
to turn yellow; I wait outside —
A balding hill of potatoes, turned
Green, through osmosis (?)
Of the clippings on this murder
Of crows. Interrogate them
Regarding the spots and rot, beg:
“What is going on with my garden?”
Roots and shoots and leaves, but
No children, excepting/accepting
Those born still or imperfect.
“Am I too old?”

At twenty-five, one should be quiet
About her fears of impotence and death.
I feel that I am not one, but two times,
And change. I change the way my hands
Look: she has become unstuck in time is
Of the essence: a term used in Business,
Real Estate, and Agriculture, namely
In the period between IUD removal
And the encroachment of invasives.
Is seven years enough to determine
how many rows : how many roses
will produce the best returns?

Return me to childhood, in early September
When the next season was growing season,
And, so too, the next and next;
When my one-track mind could focus
On the present, and the presents
That I might open on my birthday;
🎶 Happy Last Day of Summer 🎶
When I could tune out their cracking
Corn, and care for nothing, but
Shortcake, with strawberries and
Cream. It would seem so strange,
Life, but a dream.