Secrets in the Gazebo
By Penny Perry
For my Aunt Leona Heyert Tarleton
who died at age 33
We are looking at the mockingbird
in the lemon tree. This is the first day
of my cousin’s summer visit.
I wriggle closer to her.
“I know how my mother died,”
my cousin whispers.
The gazebo is the place for secrets.
My Aunt Leona was almost famous.
She wrote plays that were on Broadway,
did crossword puzzles in ink. On a cold
spring day when silly girls wore sundresses
and shivered, Aunt Leona wore a smart
wool suit and pinned a spring violet
on her lapel.
Wendy’s mother died when Wendy
was only seven months old.
My cousin squints at the sun shooting
off the adobe tile roof. This is the first day
of her summer visit.
The jasmine smells sweet. She is thirteen.
I am eleven.
“She had an abortion,” Wendy says.
Her eyes are bright. She loves telling me
things I’m not supposed to know.
“A-bor-tion,” I repeat. Grandpa taught us
to sound out long words.
Grandma calls my cousin an orphan
even though she has a father.
“My mother didn’t want to have a second
baby so soon.”
“A baby?”
“It wasn’t a baby.
Your mother drove her to the bad doctor.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“But she did.”
I blot my wet face with my sleeve.
The excitement has left my cousin’s eyes.
Now I know why sometimes Mother
locks the bathroom door, turns the water
on full blast. She thinks I don’t hear her cries.
Wendy has long legs and her feet
touch the ground. My legs dangle
and the tie on the right sneaker has come
undone.
A seven time Pushcart nominee, Penny Perry has published a poetry collection, Santa Monica Disposal and Salvage (Garden Oak Press). Her novel Selling Pencils and Charlie, also from Garden Oak Press, was a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards in 2021. Her new poetry collection, Woman with Newspaper Shoes, was published June 2022 by Garden Oak Press.
Photo credit: “Polite Notice on Studded Door” is by Morning-meadow Jones, an American junior high school dropout, who later went on to realize her full potential and drop out of college too. She is a mother, migrant, and multi-media creative, practicing all manner of arts from her home in Wales, UK. She recently launched her writing career at the age of 51. Foolow her on Twitter at @Morning_meadowJ.
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