Encore Presentation

Mary McCarthy

 

 

 Dorothy, Margie and Mary

 

My Sisters and Me

By Mary McCarthy

I have seven siblings, but these poems tell the story of my relationship with my two sisters, Margie and Dorothy, and dear friend Millie who has been loyal and steady as a sister to me since we were young. My relationship with each of my sisters is different and strong in its own way. These poems come out of our histories together.   My sisters and I were all born one year apart, I am the oldest born in 1950. Margie arrived in 1951 and Dorothy.in 1952.

I’ve been a writer and artist all my life. Both sisters are creative. Margie wrote and drew as a teenager but not later. She was a nurse for her whole career, while I became a nurse later after leaving my studies at the university, disillusioned with academia. 

Dorothy became a Pharmacist. Dorothy makes beaded jewelry, Margie makes candies and fancy sweets. Both hobbies taken up after retirement. Two of my brothers were also very creative, unfortunately both passed away far too early. Jimmy was a wonderful artist, Paul wrote.

"Two Sisters" and "Millie" appeared in Verse Virtual, and the others are unpublished.  In 2024, I   received three Best of the Net nominations, two for my artwork and one for a poem from Storyteller Poetry Review.

 

 

Dorothy and me

 

 Together

we seem a pair,
identical, damaged…arms linked,
plain enough to pass without notice,
even though haunted by memories
both true and false, narrow escapes
and stratagems designed like blinds
for us to hide behind.
We come from the same place,
remember what time cannot
varnish or blur, we wear a fine
web of fractures, netting our skin
like the crazed surface
of old porcelain,
permanent marks left by injuries
after the bruises fade.
Our skin sensitive, nerves awake
to the faintest tremor in the air
forecasting violence, ready
for the sudden strike
of lightning from an empty sky.
The illusion of composure
is uneven, forced,
an often clumsy effort
that lets our fault lines show,
white and unmistakable
as a torn hem left unmended…
Scars we forgot to hide
worn without apology,
and a lonely measure
of survivor’s pride,
as we stand together, arms entwined,
on the hard ground that taught us
everything we know.

Two Sisters                

After “Two Sisters” by Nina Arbore

We were like Martha and Mary
in the bible story
one always ready
for the task at hand
smoothing all the snags
out of the day’s hard turnings,
keeping things in order,
taking care that meals
were made, guests welcomed,
while I read and dreamed
in the space you cleared for me,
stitching stories into fabrics
both of us could wear.

We shared more than blood
and circumstance,
understood hard blows and curses
could come even on
the calmest day, unannounced
until they fell on us
in sudden punishing hail
that would leave us bruised,
wary and defiant,
ready to quietly subvert
the peace he thought to win
with our subjection.

No one else knew
how it was, how it worked,
why we never talked
or begged for mercy.
It was as secret and miraculous
as communion,
taken dry and brittle
on the tongue.
Something only we remember
and carry with us
like a scar
no matter how well
we dress, how far we go
or what else we try so
hard to forget.

 

In the top row are me and my cousin Ray (also born in 1950) in second row, Dorothy, cousin Kathy (Ray's sister) and Margie.

 

My Sister Was an Only Child

Believed everything they told her
liked my communion dress so much
it fit her perfectly, left me
with scuffed white shoes
punished for escaping
the celebration, to run around
the block and down the alley
with my cousin, his suit and my
white organdy besmirched
two disobedient souls no one
would mistake for angels-

I had a nose for lies
the way a beagle has
a nose for the hunt, a
bloodhound for the trace
a fugitive leaves behind.
None of it made much sense
to me–all that pretending
pretending nothing happened
in the odd corners you were
caught in, alone and small
with nothing much to use
refusing what the man
with such rough hands
insisted on–

Maybe my orphan sister
never knew those corners
because I was already there

I couldn't match her faith,
or her obedience, more interested
in defiance than compliance
ready to upset expectations
challenge rules, do things backwards
and upside down, or not at all,
winning no prizes, no blue
ribbons, but constellations
of scars I was proud of,
outside the circle, off the charts
collecting punishments as if
they were gold medals, marks
of my success, refusing
the dull and usual, the safe
path, choices I couldn’t
shout down loud enough
shaking off the rules–

And still I never  
lost her, my sister
always here, familiar,
looking back at me
from the face I see
in every mirror

 

 

 Mary McCarthy, left, and her friend, Millie styling her hair

 

Millie

It was easy for us
to be wild together
that August at the first
ever street art fair
meant as counterpoint
to the big one downtown
with no local artists
with its industrial strength
prices, both for art
and the space to show it.
We were the ragamuffin crew
building our own display
outside the liquor store
and the psychedelic groove
of the local bars–that year
we sold nothing but had
many admirers in the crowd
cash poor  students
and Hare Krishna devotees
hands full of flowers and
incense ready to see
angels and demons alive
and shining in our paintings
they could appreciate
but not afford–and it was all
OK, Liquor so close to hand
and the generous smoke
layered like stratus in
the air all around us-OK
even when the storm swept
all our stuff down before it
and we had to rescue and
re-fit–back in only hours
to sit there and sell nothing
while the bands played
acid rock and everyone wore
rags and spangles like
Gypsy Queens–You never
bailed even when I was
far too enthusiastic with
the vodka–blind drunk
and something to manage
before our ride came-
to ferry us and all our work
back home. You thought
I left you  sober enough to blame–
but no blame was cast
no punishment offered
more than what the body pays
for such wild indulgence..

Years later you gifted me again
when I had abandoned
everything, even speech,
and was blind in the darkest
room-the one you might
never leave alive, and there
was no laughing matter
nothing light enough
to free the smothered breath
from its sour confinement.
Kept close as I was, under
lock and key, being preserved
I thought, like some desiccated
fruit or flower, already dead–
But it was Easter, time
of miracles and resurrections,
and you came to me, my
sister-friend, not with prayers
and sympathy, no cheerful flowers
or candy eggs, but a perfect
Chocolate gun, the bold
hilarity there to rescue me
push me into laughter, even
in that last sad theater of dust.


One Sunday

My sister and I
headed out for dinner
at our favorite
Italian restaurant
after a hard weeks work
she as a seasoned nurse
on the med surg unit
me as a new student
working as an aide
when not in class or clinic–
where I loved every minute
of its solid physicality
so different from
my university years
chasing ideas and theories
parsing texts and juggling metaphors
playing with words–oceans
and continents of words
poems shimmering with light
stories that swooped and dove
teasing with endless invention
suddenly gone empty as air
when I turned from fantasy
to fact, art to science
to the solidity of flesh
the poetry of bone and blood–

And there we were
suddenly stopped
by cars and a crowd
surrounding a small boy
-his body crumpled-
pale against the blacktop
not bleeding but not moving
as we stood there frozen
waiting for the cops
and ambulance, while the driver
who’d hit the boy
stood by the curb on crutches
his right leg in a cast
waiting for judgment
already there in the crowd
staring at that casted leg–
And one more small boy spinning out wild
arms flailing, face a rictus
of grief, shouting
“It’s my fault, my fault
I threw the ball he was going for”
his body tense as a coiled wire
eyes frantic, until I
caught him in my arms
holding him
until his trembling eased
and his voice fell into tears-

And when my sister said
“How could you do that?
Hold a stranger like that?”
I didn’t have
an answer.


Read more on Mary McCarthy:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/04/