Intimations
of Carson McCullers at New Smyrna Beach
Liz
Dolan
Brush
fires still not sated, we pray
for
rain today in Volushia County where
I
write in a white room enveloped
by
palmettos. A ghost orchid suspends
in
mid air like a white frog. Early morning
I
meander down a sandy lane
where
Spanish moss tangles thickets of piney woods.
As
lean as a young colt Frankie Addams
in
cutoff jeans and straw hat swaggers thinking
about
what she might become, a golden apricot
or
a purple plum. Hard to tell
if
she is boy or girl, has yet to learn she can’t tag along
on
the honeymoon. On either side
roots
are choking each other. South of here
alligators
attack three women. In a knee-deep watery slough
five
egrets in opal plumes and yellow slippers preen
like
bridesmaids in white light. I can no longer bear
her
angst. I am so unaware
of
my breathing I don’t notice it until it is spare.
***
A
Pushcart nominee in poetry, fiction and nonfiction, Liz Dolan
has published poems, memoir and short stories in New Delta
Review, Mudlark, Rattle, Harp Weaver,
The Cortland Review, Illuminations, Prism International
Quarterly, Canadian Woman Studies, Philadelphia
Stories, Natural Bridge, among others. She has received
a fellowship and grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts.
Her work in Mudlark was chosen for The Best of the Web by Web
Del Sol. Liz was recently accepted as an associate artist in residence
with Sharon Olds at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Philadelphia
Stories has requested her presence on their poetry board and
she won a prize in "The Art Of Storytelling Contest"
from the DE Museum of Art. She is most proud of the alternative
school she ran in The Bronx and her eight children who live on
the next block.
©
Liz Dolan