Reckless in Joy
She’s forty, blonde, and a smoker,
reclining on a blue webbed lawn chair
rubbing her basketball belly.
“No need for tests,” she announces.
“We don’t envision problems.”
This is her second marriage.
The first husband, a building engineer,
fell forty floors in a freak accident,
and she has miraculously thrown
fear off the roof, too,
at least at our neighborhood pool,
where she puffs a cigarette
over her pregnant belly
and invites me to her baby shower,
next Sunday at two p.m.
It’s the 1980’s, amniocentesis and ultrasound
are not routine. Smoking isn’t banned
in restaurants. And this woman believes
she can celebrate before a baby emerges
with all twenty digits and un-slanted eyes.
Not me. Jews don’t have baby showers,
don’t tempt the evil eye,
don’t even buy a blanket
before baby comes home.
We are not reckless in joy,
like my blonde neighbor
who haunts me still,
unwrapping a teddy bear frame,
all ready for a smiling photo
of second child with second husband.
CALL A FRIEND
It was decided in the patrol car,
with the blond policeman.
He looked about forty, a father I presumed,
the kind of man who might coach Little League
in the same voice he used with me.
Call someone to meet you.
At the house, he had kept me busy with questions:
Who is your husband's doctor? What medications did he take?
I scurried back and forth presenting slips
of useless information he funneled to the paramedics
as he calmly directed the show,
an episode of Twilight Zone in black and white.
Call a neighbor to take your kids.
We'll follow the ambulance in my car.
Like a battered wife afraid of more bruises,
I obeyed in silence until he ordered me to call a friend.
Someone should be with you.
No. Michelle is busy. So is Jeanne, Leslie, and Carol.
Skillfully, he swatted each excuse
until it became a flattened fly.
You shouldn’t be alone.
So Debbie was called on the police radio. Static
punctuated the request
which hurried her to the hospital
to hold my hand
as the doctor confirmed
what I knew was true
from the moment
I was told to call a friend.
Jacqueline Jules is a poet, teacher, and author of two dozen children's books including Zapato Power and Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation. Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including Third Wednesday, Christian Science Monitor, Imitation Fruit, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Cape Rock, Inkwell, Potomac Review, and Pirene's Fountain. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com.