—for Julie Parrish, American actress, 1940-2003
Protection comes in many forms:
A wall of bricks and crumbling mortar,
a hedge of silent well-trimmed privet,
a woman looking toward the sun,
horizon peach and blue with dusk.
Some would say she used to be,
and list the bit parts she’d played of late:
the girlfriend of the owner
of the place the kids hang out,
the teacher of the teenage girl
whose mother drinks too much,
an audience member all in beige
trying hard not to steal the scene.
But other people, starting over
in small apartments or the women’s shelter
out in the canyon—no, the other one—
will always remember her differently,
keeping her in their hearts as a feeling:
That first night’s rest in a safe place
when you still jump at every sound
but a small hand reaches out to calm you
and it’s the softest thing you’ve ever known.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 4.
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, after spending most of her life in Ohio, now lives in Florida where she edits confidential documents. Her work has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, Massachusetts Review, and Shenandoah. She is the winner of a Sheila-Na-Gig Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction. Her zine about her experiences undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, Fine, Considering, is available from Rinky Dink Press (2019). Her full-length poetry collection, The Swellest Wife Anyone Ever Had, about Appalachian Ohio, will be available from White Violet Press in Fall 2024. She can be found on YouTube hosting the Meter Cute Interviews podcast on Meter&Mayhem.
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