Tina Passman

BLUE ROCKING

the blue rocking-
chair in the
dawn square
toys
neat in the
cardboard
box

Worcester wore me
those pitiless years

I disguised
hard days
rag rugs
factory dust
(the morning dance)
bottles lunch pail
work shirt
diapers boiled
on the gas &
gas stove

she rocked tiny
legs splayed
furzed hair eyes
blue as
chair

I drank her with
the good light
coffee steam
glass curtains
patch work
pattern

my hands cracked
red
fingers ached
heart pained
She sang She sang
I
lost
the blue
rocking chair

gone
the light
coffee

the kind night speaks
look: dust
a square of
dawn
through this new
window
indifferent
bright

* * *

MAROONED

when i am very small
like i am right now
i am afraid always
and i tell myself
u r safe
when i am very small
like i am now
i want to talk to someone
tell me
u r safe
n fun
I like you
let's play

when i am very small
like i am now
i reach for the phone
to talk to my friends
but they are not there
they can't be there
any
more

no more
friends
home
toys
neighborhood

time took them
away from me
and i am here
and very small
and there is no one
who knows me
because time has passed
and i
have not

Tina Passman teaches courses in Classics, Peace & Reconcilation Studies, and Universal Design at the University of Maine. As a person with multiple physical and psychiatric disabilities, including dissociative identity disorder, she seeks to articulate her lived experience, which is often outside of time and memory.