Small Currencies
The flat, slate sky shingled over me
the day my mother’s mother travelled
to visit us a second time.
My parents bickering and yelling
became barbs, insults, name-calling,
swearing; the outbursts mapping manifestations
of my mother’s insecurities, her desires
to show me off as her personal project.
At nine, I felt her onerous need
and my responsibility to comply.
The Bee-Gees sang “How Deep is Your Love”
in the car to the airport; my toes curled and
bruising in my wooden clogs,
my nails dug into my hand-me-down
leather pocketbook; half-circles of anxiety.
Visiting and sight-seeing went together;
the lighthouse glowed in diffused daylight
as I sat in the car while everyone else exited.
I was aware of the price of disobedience:
when someone wields an axe, no matter which way it swings
you bleed. My only protest, not coming, was to savor
the silence, short-lived though it would be.
Before the tour was over, my mother came back alone,
yanked open the passenger-side door:
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing!
Trying to make Grammy feel sorry for you—
you’re no victim!”
I slunk further in the seat
swallowing all the pennies she hurled,
the back of my throat burnishing heavy
with the tang of copper.
They settled low in my belly
like all the times shame was stuffed into
my mouth, tarnish and zinc dissolving,
staying with me for years.
© Loralee Clark
Loralee Clark has two chapbooks forthcoming: A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth (Dancing Girl Press, 2025) and Neolithic Imaginings: Mythical Explorations of the Unknown (Kelsay Press, 2026). Her first chapbook is Solemnity Rites (Prolific Pulse Press, 2025) and her second is Delighting in “To Be”: Poems for Writers (Bottlecap Press, 2025). Clark has been nominated for two 2026 Pushcart Prizes. She resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark. Her Substack, which focuses on the process of creativity, is nosuchthingasfailure.substack.com.
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