Storyteller of the Week

 Shelly Blankman 

 

 

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband of 43 years. They have two sons, Richard and Joshua, who live in New York and Texas, respectively. They have filled their empty nest with four rescue cats and a dog. Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly with the publication of her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Open Door Magazine, among others.

By Sharon Waller Knutson

I was hooked on Shelly Blankman’s poetry when I first read this poem on Silver Birch
Press.

The Fortune Cookie  

Caught in a storm as thick and dark
as the medical web that trapped me,
I took shelter at a Chinese buffet,

where no one could mistake my tears
for raindrops. I could sink my sorrow
in a nice, warm bowl of soup, and no one

would notice – except for Joy. Her elbow
bumped mine at the buffet bar. Oh, I’m sorry,
she said, startling me, flipping the mirror

I’d focused on myself. I hadn’t noticed her
until then. I hadn’t noticed anyone. That's okay,
I mumbled. She was striking – a Black woman,

tall and lean, glittering in gold, from her giant
hoop earrings and jingling bangle bracelets to her
sleek ankle-length dress and stilettos. Her long,

gold fingernails pointed to her favorite dishes,
and as we filled our plates, she asked questions
about my life, as if trying to pry open a shell

I’d slammed shut a long time ago. As we parted
for our tables, she shook my hand. My name is Joy.
It was nice to meet you. She hugged me tightly,

whispered,  It’s going to be okay, her faint fragrance
lingering as she disappeared into the crowd of diners
and I returned to my table – invisible once again.

Rain had begun to wane. Still imbued with the warmth
of Joy’s hug, I grabbed my coat. My fortune cookie,
safely wrapped in its tiny package, dropped to the floor.

I’d almost stepped on it, then almost tossed it. Instead
I opened it gingerly and in tiny print, the message read,
The hard times will begin to fade. Joy will take their place.

I scanned each room to find the woman in gold. Nothing.
Visited each table, asked servers carrying heavy trays,
approached hostesses and diners. No one had seen her.

I wonder even now if I had. I left that night feeling
defeated. Why hadn’t I told her how much it meant
to feel her hug, to see her smile, to feel her comfort?

Two years later, the fortune cookie message is still
displayed on my fridge. Dark times remain,
but Joy stays with me. I hope she knows that.


I find her voice sultry and smoky as she takes us on a stroll through her past. I am happy to publish these poems that show her signature style and who she is as a person.


Finding Your Soul

I lost you long before you died, paid the price
for the wreckage of your life – the shattered
pieces of your childhood and a marriage that
went all to hell. I was bullied at school and you
were bullied at home. You didn’t believe in hugs.

Your mantra was there is no such thing as love.
The first time and only time you told me you loved
me was after Alzheimer’s had impaled your brain
like a shrike. You died within months. But years
later, you came back to me in a dream, sitting

across from me at the kitchen table in the house
where I’d grown up. Just you and me. You were
smiling warmly and holding both of my hands
lovingly. You spoke softly. I don’t recall the words.
A gentle smile I’d rarely seen. No name calling,

no laughing at me. Just a soft, reassuring tone that
I’d never heard from you in life. And then you
were gone. I’d seen your soul stripped of pain
and fear. A woman of strength and grace I’d always
hoped would be there for me – and for you.  

Your wreckage has gone,
your soul now emerged.


Hostess Without the Mostest

I should have known the job was not meant for me.
A restaurant hostess, I was short, dumpy, clumsy,
plain, that slippery stage at age sixteen, when a girl
tries to act older than she feels. Only the mirror

reflects the truth behind the makeup. The head hostess,
an Aphrodite with long blond hair. Mine kinky, unruly –
more like Medusa’s minus the snakes that would draw
stares cold as stone. She, not much older than I, had

smooth curves, porcelain skin, her voice lovely, lilting.
My voice crackled by nerves, welcoming customers
ogling her. Hungry people can be so mean! Aphrodite’s job
to tell me where to seat the starved; my job, to lead them

in their suits, pearls, and clicking heels through a labyrinth
of tables, white- knuckling menus in my hands while trying
to complete this Herculean task with all the strength of a wingless
bird before Aphrodite rescued me, showing that, yes, beauty

and brains can come in one package of perfection. Finally, success.
A table of eight for a party of four. Why hadn’t I remembered that?
And an inviting pitcher of beer for a party who had no doubt worked up
a thirst. In my triumphant moment, I also forgot  – Never separate tables

with a pitcher of beer in the middle. The shatter of glass echoed as if from
from a mountaintop into an endless valley below. An odd fusion of Pabst
and perfume filled the aired and the cacophony of cursing and cries from
customers who had by then lost their appetite gave me the best tip ever:

Never work in a restaurant again. EVER.

First published by Silver Birch Press


My Father’s Typewriter  

You never knew, did you, how your typing lulled me to sleep, saved  

me from starless nights, when I lay in bed, afraid the sun would never 

rise? You never knew, did you, how much I laughed inside, watching 

                                          
you hunt and peck faster than others who’d been taught the proper way? 

You never knew how I loved the smell of carbon ribbon or how I hated 

the “c” so faded it had to be pounded to show on paper, those thin yellow 

                                            
sheets that ripped if you pulled just a little too hard from the carriage. I 

wrote my first paper on that typewriter and your grandsons used it, too, 

long after science slew the dinosaur and left the typewriter in its wake 

a useless fossil. The typewriter is silent. It's been years since you’ve been 

gone. It’s caked with dust, the “c” still broken, but it doesn’t matter anymore.  

I can still hear you tapping, smell the carbon ribbon, see the paper, 

and remember how all those years ago, when you  

and your typewriter saved me from  starless nights.   

                                                   
First published by Poetry Super Highway

Open Blinds: When the Son Comes Out

I never knew you were gay. Children can’t find the words,
and when they do, they’re afraid to say them aloud.
And I, as a mom, feared hearing them. Why no interest

in Boy Scouts or sports? Your bedroom was your field;
your computer, your companion. What did I do? I let you
be you. But it wasn’t you, was it? You, hiding in the dark cell

of your real self. Day after day, year after year. Living
between the pages of the books you read, within each
poem you created, on every canvas you painted,

in all the songs you composed. The cacophony of
comments spilled like red wine on a white tablecloth
at every family function with no one seeing the stains

left behind. He's so handsome. He’s so intelligent. He’s
so talented. Why isn’t he dating? I owed no one answers.
I had no answers. Dodging their questions never erased  

the doubts. We’d soon lose you to a world of hatred.
If we didn’t know your truth now, how could we help
you face what lay ahead of you? You squirmed the day

Dad finally asked you if you were dating any girls.
No, you murmured. Any guys? I asked. Are you gay?
Yes. The landmine had fizzled. You never saw my tears

that night. All those years, I’d never seen yours. How many
days of pain had I missed? How many tears had you shed
in the safety of darkness? How many days had you stumbled

through life and I wasn’t there for you? How could I be free
from the doubt and despair of letting you down? Through  

my fog of sorrow, Dad assured me you were the same son we’ve                                                   

always known and loved, I wasn’t to blame. But how do I know  

what to say to you now? No book teaches a parent the words 

to use to how to use them. You did. You educated me.

You taught me to listen, learn, and let you lead the way,
because sunrays can always seep through open blinds.

First published by Ghost City Press

The Villain

Dedicated to my grandmother, Regina Wallenstein, the
only one in a family of eight to survive the Holocaust.

She didn’t know when she boarded the boat,                                                                                                                                                                         
the villain would be freedom. That charred
children and their makeshift toys left behind
as kindle were not the end of one tragedy, but

the beginning of a new one – on a boat jammed
with others’ vomit splattered on her war-torn dress,
stitched lovingly by her mother. She didn’t know
she’d sleep standing, if she could sleep at all, her

shoes soaked in strangers’ urine. She didn’t know
the sight of seagulls would not mean the shore
of freedom. Or her eyelids would be pinned back
to check for disease that might end her journey

to new beginnings. She didn’t know that burning
numbers in her arm was not the only way to brand
her as a Jew. She didn’t know, how could she
know, the villain would be freedom?

First published by Whispers Journal.