My grandmother bathed with her underwear on
and undressed every night in the closet,
guarding the intimate room of her body
dutifully given in marriage.
Her daughter, my mother,
derided her mother’s Puritan shame
but imprisoned herself in an alternate room,
alcohol’s padded cell.
Which liberated her tongue
to a pornographic and savage excess
that helped to wall up her self-doubt
and fortified her enough
to feint at seducing a family friend.
Also the man who delivered the laundry.
And even the officer
summoned one night to the park
where she’d fled in her nightgown
and hurled herself down on the ground.
My own intimate room
is spacious enough for two,
unlike my grandmother’s closet.
Is neither a hideout nor prison
but a room sacrosanct
in the house I have built.
No chink for the ghosts
of the two damaged women I loved.
_
Sharon Whitehill is a retired English professor from West Michigan now living in Port Charlotte, Florida. In addition to poems published in various literary magazines, her publications include two scholarly biographies, two memoirs, two poetry chapbooks, and a full collection of poems.
© 2023, Sharon Whitehill
Halfway Down the Stairs 