#192: "All She Knew She Learned at the Movies" by Lois Roma-Deeley

~This poem was previously published in Sow’s Ear (1991). 

i

Paper Covers Stone

Some flicker of morning

light breezes through the blind

of my kitchen window

strikes the wall white. A drum

stick from last night’s dinner

lies alone on top the bed

of baby peas. Close up

I’d say my lines

around the mouth

are much too fine

to see. In fact I’m often told

by perfect strangers on the street

I look like Bette Davis

in Dark Victory. Only the eyes

go soft when I

bite my lip: a thousand times I said no

don’t buy me a solitary

pearl set in gold.

He married

poorly, and when they took off—

all the way to God

knows where—I swear

I was relieved.

ii

Scissor Cuts Paper

Time has two hands

around my throat

and you’re urging

him to squeeze me

harder. Aren’t you

satisfied? Look

in your wildest dreams

envy

is the enemy

who points a finger

at your wrist, watches

the tantrum of blue veins

blister thin skin, then smiles—

                   spitting in your ear:

he should have married me.

iii

Stone Smashes Scissor

No one in the world

cares to hear the story

of how it all began or

if in fact they were

a perfect looking pair.

No one in the world knows that

when she bites her lip

she needs to be alone;

when she speaks of love, she only

talks of him—how much

he cost her: cruelty

is a shock for those who feel

no one in the world

leaves a light on at home

without locking every door

twice, without closing

all the windows tight.

She hears a knock downstairs and sure,

she gets up to answer, but

no one in the world

is there. The winter

wind, trapped deep within

a wall, comforts her,

that’s all. She knows the roar,

once a sea-rose of pink sound,

carried him far out

to the shallows of her

well-lit house. There, wading in

the pools, she made love

feel like a world

where no one ever goes.

*****

THE STORY BEHIND THE POEM 

I wrote “All She Knew She Learned At the Movies” during a time when I was teaching Women’s Studies courses at the university. As a Women’s Studies professor, I had students who trusted me with their stories. Feminism was not a just a theory or world view to me. Feminism—and the consequences of sexism— had a very real human face. Further, my teaching experience caused me to more closely examine my own life as well as the lives of my students. Poetry was then—and is now— the only way for me to deal with any of it.

However like many writers, my creative process often involves getting obsessed by entire subjects outside the literary realm. This fit perfectly into my lecture preparation. In fact, my obsessions delighted and, sometimes, consumed me. Feminist theorists as well as feminist psychologists became of great interest to me.  In reviewing some of their works, reoccurring themes took over my imagination and would not let go.

For example, the idea of how women “internalize oppression” was a theme that seemed to repeat itself over and over again in my investigations. The question of how human beings give up a sense of self fascinated me. I was enthralled—and not a bit terrified—by  the process—the “how” of it. This idea brought me to many authors and ultimately to R.D. Laing’s The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness.  Some of the chapters in this book became a model for the voice in the poem.

*****

ABOUT LOIS ROMA-DEELEY

 Lois Roma-Deeley, winner of the Samuel T. Coleridge Literary Prize, is the author of three collections of poetry: Rules of Hunger (2004), northSight (2006) and High Notes (2010)—a 2011 Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. She has published in more than twelve anthologies, including Villanelles (Everyman’s Library, Pocket Poets Series). Further, her work has been featured in nationally and internationally in numerous literary journals including, The Transnational (forthcoming), Spillway, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Bellingham Review, 5 AM, Water~Stone, and many others.  www.loisroma-deeley.com