PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs

As a child, I decided to take photographs

with my eyes. A one two three click and a photo

added to my mind’s photo album.

I’ll forever see Daisy panting in the driveway,

my mother waving goodbye to the piano students.

I’ll forever see a newt I once caught

in a river. It squirmed and writhed

in its shallow basin until I let it go free.

I’ll forever see the 6th grade dance where my mom

and my best friend’s grandmother chaperoned.

The next day, we were moving away.

On the car ride home from the dance, I cried.

Everyone thought I was crying about leaving

but I was crying for myself—me standing

in a corner alone while everyone else

danced with someone.

I remember every time I lied at school,

especially in gym class.

Yes, I can touch my toes.

Yes, I can do 30 push-ups.

Yes, I can run a 7-minute mile.

I lied so many times that I thought

I'd have to live up to those lies.

I imagined a secret agent asking me

to prove my speed on the track,

prove my flexibility on a mat,

so every day I ran and stretched.

I can't lie to others and I try not to lie to myself.

So I take mental pictures. If I tell myself

to remember something, then I will.

Memory is like a dog, eager to obey.

I tell it to sit, fetch, roll over, and it does.

The Rules

In our school, no one walks across the grass.

They only walk on the white sidewalks.

In our school, everyone sits in the same

group everyday, the same chair.

I imagine their names are written in invisible ink.

In our school, we wear our backpacks slung low

on our shoulders till they sag and droop.

In our school, the hems of our jeans

fall below our shoes until they fray.

Years ago, I had holes in my jeans

from jumping on the trampoline.

From cantering on my hands and knees.

Pretending I was a pony.

A girl asked me if I was poor.

I stopped playing the pony.

Growing up, I wore polka dots

on Monday, stripes on Tuesdays,

watermelons on Wednesdays,

graffiti-fireworks on Thursdays,

strawberries on Friday.

I wore the same thing each day.

I wore ruffled socks. I folded each ruffle

against my ankles until they were pressed like wings.

I had rules too (I made them myself)—

no television after 5 pm. Bedtime at 8 pm.

I thought childhood had its own rules.

Like climbing trees and collecting bugs.

Maybe breaking a bone or two.

Believing a telephone made of paper

and string could really work.

Watching clouds make shapes in the sky.

A whole zoo of cloud-animals.

But I never did those things.

I never believed those things.

Now people follow unspoken rules.

They follow the rules every day.

I can't figure out what the rules are.

You Can’t Ever Leave Yourself

Somewhere in the Before,

my sister and I started

calling each other Tammy.

No offense to anyone named Tammy

but I always thought it was a funny name

especially when pronounced

with an extra nasally a sound in the middle

like someone from Minnesota

or the Midwest,

so we both started calling

each other Tammy.

I am Tammy

and she is Tammy,

interchangeable.

One day I burst into her room

and I wouldn't leave.

She was tired.

She said she needed time

to herself after a long day

and that she didn't feel like talking.

I didn't understand.

Wasn't the whole point of us

both being Tammy

that we couldn't get sick of each other?

She said I'm tired of people

and I said I'm not people.

I'm Tammy.

I'm the same as you.

So I stayed in her room.

We are both Tammy.

Don't you know

you can't ever leave yourself?

The Rabbit

Growing up, my sister

wanted to be a marine biologist.

She used to watch every movie

she could find about whales.

She wrote Save the Whales!

on every surface.

My mother said if she cared

about water so much,

she should change the rabbit’s

dirty water bowl.

I can see my mother’s logic,

the more I think about it.

Water transforms anything

it touches into a mystery.

Water gives everything

a brand new surface.

Water adds depth.

Water changes every day.

As we approached,

the rabbit thumped in warning.

We poured the water’s secrets

into the grass.

The water was dark and mysterious,

fishless but not mindless.

We refilled the bowl.

The water regained its secrets.

The rabbit watched and waited.

It pains me to say it, but for many years

I forgot the rabbit.

I never forgot the water.

What I Didn't Know

When we were little, my mother signed us

up for horseback riding lessons.

She was worried about how we'd whisper

into the teacher’s ear— too afraid to ask

to go to the bathroom, too afraid to ask for more.

She said If you can get a horse to listen,

you can get anyone to listen.

But she was mostly wrong.

I dug my heels into the horse’s girth

and when my pony turned left or right

it was mostly a fluke.

My first blue ribbon was purely accidental.

I watched Myra turn at the fence

between two posts,

the last twist in the obstacle course.

Always an accident,

like my first goal in soccer—

the ball happened to bounce

off my foot.

I never even saw it happen.

I still like to look away at the most

inopportune moment.

Maybe if I look away

I'll see with someone else's eyes.

Maybe I'll be able to see myself,

maybe I'll still be myself despite myself.

The same way I won the fourth grade

spelling bee because my mouth

knew all the words that I didn't.

Esther Sadoff is a teacher and writer from Columbus, Ohio. Her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Little Patuxent Review, Jet Fuel Review, Cathexis Poetry Northwest, Pidgeonholes, Santa Clara Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, among others. She has three forthcoming chapbooks: Some Wild Woman (Finishing Line Press), Serendipity in France (Finishing Line Press), and Dear Silence (Kelsay Books). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Hole in the Head Review.