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Cardinal Points

~ Poetry By Sandra Sidman Larson

Cardinal Points

Tag Archives: sex

The Facts of Life at Camp Nyoda

19 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Childhood, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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sex

Pat, one of my cabin mates, thought she was a horse.
Every morning she got, whinnying and galloped out
onto the hillside. Through the screen door, I studied her
eating oats. Jane slept in the bunk next to mine,
her sour breath drifted over me. Crying softly
in the dark, she whispered, headaches hurt.

On Sunday evening we gathered around the campfire
with our camp director, “Cha-woo”, who,
dressed in emblem-decorated deerskin, lit
three candles for work, health and love as we sang,
We come, we come to our council fire with measured tread
and slow to light the fire of our desire, to light the fire
of wo-he-lo, wo-he-lo, wo-he-lo
.

The following night in bungalow number eight,
Susan began to read aloud about a very young, Latin American girl,
the youngest girl ever to give birth, or so Time Magazine said.
I was even more surprised by this than the reporter.
How can she have a baby when she isn’t even married?
I asked. Laughter. A messenger of God disguised
as Susan’s cabin mate spoke. Silly, don’t you know
the facts of life?
She outlined them. It was evening.

My face was as hot as last night’s campfire,
my heart galloping like Pat’s legs in the morning, my breathing,
as labored as Jane’s with her migraines. I walked out into the field alone, toward the lake. The setting sun was like a sheepherder collecting colors off
all the trees, the rocks, the grass, the barn walls
until I too was as black as sheep, huddled against
the oncoming avalanche of a rushing moon.

Published, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2003

The Red Dress

17 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Love and Lust, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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sex

Gothic in design, fluted with knowledge.
She thought through books. The facts were there.
She flashed her library card, dropped her satchel.
The tall wooden catalogue cabinet had tongues.
They mouthed “0” for Obstetrics.
Hush! She carried up the stairs the heavy
text edited by a myriad of male experts.

In a small carrel, she fanned the pages
with nervous fingers. She would work
backwards. A baby’s delivery
threads from Gestation,
to Conception,
Conception to Prevention.

She had to skip Conception because she found
mostly Catholic theology, the Virgin Mary
and Fertility, and, furthermore, she didn’t need
fields or farms, bees or barns.
Miss Zackas, her eighth grade gym teacher,
years ago, wooden
pointer in her hand, the light dim
in the gym, had tapped the slide
projector screen, pointed to the egg’s
path from the fallopian tube to the womb
where it met up with the sperm.

Here were the facts: diaphragms took
a doctor’s fitting and clinical analysis of what
she was doing. Rubbers? Gloves best handled
by males. She was looking only for love
at just the right moment. She realized, as a bright girl
she’d have to be a scientist of The Rhythm Method.

That night dressed in ill-gotten knowledge
and flaming red lipstick, red dress, black stockings,
she purchased two tickets to a Jose Greco show,
her favorite Spanish dancer. On stage, the spotlight
came to rest on a tall figure dressed
in a suit of gray. His back to the audience,
one booted foot crossed over the other.
His slim buttocks, round
and firm, presented only the idea
of what rose in front of him.

Now a woman begins to wail. The stamping
of her feet, a lift of her skirt, his black boots
stamping in response, a stallion about to go wild,
staccato sounds reverberate, the audience
all most out of control.

Later that night she kicked off her black heels,
unsnapped her garter belt, shed her nylons,
and danced into her lover’s hard embrace.
Blood flowed to the floor and flowered.

Two weeks later it stopped and did not come back.
Her library search resumes, this time looking for
references again on Gestation.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series,

Wearing Pink in Glen Ridge, New Jersey–My Hometown

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Childhood, Politics, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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sex

Nothing important happened in my hometown.
Well, nothing ever happened that anyone was willing to talk
about to Catholics, newcomers or children. Nor did I gather
useful information eaves dropping
at my parents’ parties from the top of the stairs
on Saturday nights when I was just a child.
Have you heard the one about two poops in a baby buggy?
The Dow looks a bit shaky, time to put. (Or was it call?)
The suit collection at Best & Company is very classic this fall.
Martini straight up or on the rocks?
The Colored are getting closer.
It nothing you could put in your pipe and smoke—
Two hearts, three clubs, I pass.

As I got older, Italians moved in.
On our annual tour to see our neighbors’ Christmas lights,
we came upon one yard with masses
of multicolored bulbs strung out
across the roof like guy wires from a circus tent.
Blinking, twinkling lights ran from the eaves in all directions
with red-nosed reindeer everywhere. A giant, lit-up
Santa sat smack in the middle of the yard.
Will you look at that! Mother exclaimed.
So garish! Must be Italians. I countered,
Well, you can’t be sure just because of what’s on their lawn.
She had the perfect reply. Oh no? Well, look over there,
isn’t that the Virgin Mary?

As Congregationalists or Episcopalians, we took it
as our religious obligation to be rational in my home town.
Who then would spend money to buy a Cadillac
when Lincolns were so much more tasteful?
In mys enior year my boyfriend Jack Cuozzo (be careful,
they are so hot-blooded) created the most lasting incident
when his taste was called into question.
Jack came to school wearing a pink, buttoned-down shirt.
Mr. Black, the principal sent him home and posted signs
on the trophy cases on every floor which read:
Male students are expected to dress appropriately.
No pink is permitted!

The next day almost to a person, our class showed up
wearing something pink and Dr. Cuozzo called
the principal and brought in his attorney,
so Jack was back. Mr. Black watched helplessly
at graduation as we walked in, the class of 1955,
flourishing a banner fashioned in pink and black.
Some years later we heard he called us
the worst class to graduate from Glen Ridge High School.
By now I think they’ve altered that opinion
since my hometown has become famous for the high school jocks
who raped the neighborhood retarded girl
with a broom handle and most of the town thought,
or so I’ve heard, it was a scandal and a shame those boys
had to do some time in prison when the parents were willing
to pay the girl’s doctor bills. Wasn’t it best just not to talk about it?
My God, these boys were college bound!

Not many residents were very interested in giving information
to reporters or willing to search out a wider point of view.
I wonder what my parents would have thought
about this incident, but they are both dead,
and I never said anything to them, anyhow,
before they died, about what I learned sitting
at the top of the stairs on Saturday nights
when I was just a child.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2003

Clothes in the Closet

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Childhood, Love and Lust, Over a Threshold of Roots

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sex

dozens of cloche hats,
shoe boxes, fancy high heels,
dresses sequestered in zippered bags—
the sisters searching
for their mother’s sequined,
knee-length, flapper gown
and her sailor costume
with middy blouse.

A sister afternoon—
the younger practices
the fine art of being taller,
flaunting
tiny, shimmering flakes
of white and pastel sequins,
so heavy in their
accumulation.

The older readies
for an ocean voyage,
packing what can’t be packed
until she gets there.

A flock of scarves,
like gull wings, flutter
down off the shelves
exposing a submerged book–

The Art of Love-Making: 100
Oriental Positions to Enhance
Your Marital Relationship.

No sailor blouses, no sequins,
in fact, no fabric to cover
the facts of life.  The book
is finally shut— if not closed—
put back in its original position.
The shoes are reboxed, the clothes rehung—
their mother’s dress-up world,
closeted for now.

Published Over a Threshold of Roots, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2007

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