{"id":278,"date":"2017-01-15T22:51:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-15T22:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=278"},"modified":"2017-12-11T22:05:51","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T22:05:51","slug":"poem-of-the-month-strings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=278","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month: Strings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/6a0120a4f9a8ff970b01b7c6e8bc92970b-800wi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-275\" src=\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/6a0120a4f9a8ff970b01b7c6e8bc92970b-800wi-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/6a0120a4f9a8ff970b01b7c6e8bc92970b-800wi-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/6a0120a4f9a8ff970b01b7c6e8bc92970b-800wi-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/6a0120a4f9a8ff970b01b7c6e8bc92970b-800wi-375x500.jpg 375w, https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/6a0120a4f9a8ff970b01b7c6e8bc92970b-800wi.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here I sit on a cloudy Thursday morning<br \/>\nuntangling the strings of a marionette<br \/>\nmy son set in my lap with full confidence<br \/>\nI&#8217;d get the job done.<br \/>\nFrom his closed room come young voices<br \/>\nhigh-pitched, rapid, like birds at dawn<br \/>\nhis two small cousins, set also in my lap to untangle<br \/>\nfrom the slack skeins of their parents&#8217; dozing care.<\/p>\n<p>I was the oldest, the children all were mine<br \/>\nthe children of my mother and the children of her friends.<br \/>\nI made the sandwiches, pushed the swings<br \/>\nbrushed out the snarled braids.<br \/>\nI read the stories in steamy bathrooms and crowded beds<br \/>\nleaving wet footprints that led from one to the other<br \/>\nto evaporate unaided.<\/p>\n<p>My brother and sister, grown, bring me their kids<br \/>\nas they once brought runny noses, broken skates.<br \/>\nThey do not wonder<br \/>\nif I am as sure as I appear.<\/p>\n<p>The heavy puppet head lolls against my knees,<br \/>\npatience painted on its face like beggar&#8217;s mask.<br \/>\nBy now the children have forgotten<br \/>\ntumbled on to other games, cruder toys of molded plastic<br \/>\nwith detachable parts.<br \/>\nStill, I keep at my task, fingers splayed to sort the strings<br \/>\nretie them to the cross-bar at the right helm spots.<\/p>\n<p>Pinocchio wanted to be real<br \/>\nmove in new ways, step aside when he wished<br \/>\nrest in a wooden heap where he willed.<br \/>\nI, too, want to trade patina for flawed flesh<br \/>\nshrug, block-headed, once in a while<br \/>\nbefore forlorn requests and unlaced needs.<\/p>\n<p>My son returns to see how I am doing.<br \/>\nI let him take the puppet half-strung, askew<br \/>\ndo not protest Wait, wait<br \/>\nI can do it, I can make it right,<br \/>\nthough the words push inside my head<br \/>\nmy reminiscent lap like flattened grass<br \/>\nwhere deer have lain the night.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStrings\u201d was published in the journal <i>A Wise Woman\u2019s Garden<\/i>, Racine, WI, 1997 and in the anthology <i>Family Matters<\/i>, Bottom Dog Press, Huron, OH, 2005.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Here I sit on a cloudy Thursday morning untangling the strings of a marionette <a href=\"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=278\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-noellesickelswp","post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-allposts","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}