Storyteller of the Week

Sarah Russell

  

 Sarah Russell with her father

 Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Rattle, Kentucky Review, Misfit Magazine, Third Wednesday, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. Her novella The Ballerina Swan Lake Mobile Homes Country Club Motel was published by Running Wild Press. She blogs at SarahRussellPoetry.net.

When she was growing up, she enjoyed writing poetry, singing and acting, but when she embraced the feminist movement during the 70’s and 80’s, she took on more left-brain pursuits – a Masters and Ph.D. while raising three kids, college teaching, writing and editing academic prose – rather than ventures in the arts. She kept those right-brain temptations at bay until she met and married Roy Clariana, a professor (almost emeritus) who teaches at Penn State. They have three children, Eden, Justin and Jared and nine grandchildren and live in Colorado. You can reach her by email at denversrh@gmail.com.

Comments by Sharon Waller Knutson

I’ve been a fan of Sarah Russell for several years, since we both published on Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review and Silver Birch Press. I love her clever, sparse, powerful poems in her signature writing style.

I’m proud to publish her poetry, especially this poem which has gone viral and was translated into Turkish, Hungarian and Malay.

If I Had Three Lives

After “Melbourne” by the Whitlams

If I had three lives, I’d marry you in two.
The other? Perhaps that life over there
at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing – a memoir,
maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably,
a small apartment with a view of the river,
and books – lots of books, and time to read.
Friends to laugh with, and a man sometimes,
for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like
when it’s alive. I’d be thinner in that life, vegan,
practice yoga. I’d go to art films, farmers markets,
drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry.
I’d vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt
weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat
and aftershave more than I did him. I’d walk the beach
at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks
water makes in sand. And I’d wonder sometimes
if I’d ever find you.

 

Nesting

 The finches are courting
outside our window, a warbled
discussion of real estate and love.
Like last year and the year before,
they want to lease the flower wreath
on our front door. It's always a dilemma:
discourage their rapture or detour
through the garage?

The finches always win. So
for a month we'll wake to overtures
at dawn – so cheerful, so loud –
show pictures of pin-feathered babies
to friends, recall demands
and pleasures of our own brood,
the bittersweet fledging.

Christmas Card  My third Christmas, Dad pulled the armchair in front of the tree. I sat on Mother’s lap with my favorite book. Her gold crepe dressing gown had fake leopard lapels. I wore a nightie with flounces and ribbons. Dad set up the tripod and flood lights, focused the Argus C-3. Mother began to read. I nestled so close I could hear her heartbeat. She got to the part, “More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,…” Dad had his shot, turned the flood lights off. Mother shut the book, nudged me off her lap.   Double Shift

The diner glows fluorescent at 2 a.m.,
beckons boozers and truckers, runaways,
women between men.

Mary receives them
as her namesake received Gabriel,
pours coffee unbidden, tends
to coconut cream and lemon meringue,
eggs over easy, a malt for the guy
with stringy hair, jittery for a fix.

She saves her tips in a pickle jar
under the grill — enough, she hopes,
to post 50 bucks for her old man’s bail
come morning.

 

First Husband

“Poetry is . . . emotion recollected in tranquility.”
― William Wordsworth

I found his obit on Google,
hadn’t seen him, barely thought
of him in forty years
since the day he loaded his car
with half of everything – blankets, pillows,
dishes, albums (we fought over
who’d get “The Graduate” poster of Hoffman
and Anne Bancroft’s leg) – and drove off
to I-didn’t-care-where.

Once, 20 years later I learned where he was
from his buddy John and called.
He still taught drama and directed
summer stock in a small midwestern town.
We laughed together, comfortable,
finally, in our separate skins.

Now an obit with pictures and two columns
in the paper. A well-loved, prominent citizen,
it read, wife, three kids, grandkids. He wrote
a children’s book and “left the town
with memories of comedy and drama
that enriched our lives.”

Our marriage wasn’t mentioned. No need,
I suppose – a youthful take off
and crash landing best forgotten. But I wish
I had a chance to say goodbye.

“If I Had Three Lives” and “First Husband” first appeared in Silver Birch Press, “Nesting,” in Your Daily Poem, “Double Shift,” in Kentucky Review, and “Christmas Card” in Brevis Press.