Rebecca Surmont

​When I Meet The New Chiropractor 
 
I lay on the chiropractic table, a new doc getting trained in. This one is complicated I hear because her body is very creative. She directs my fingers to rest gently on my neck, a familiar place full of sinew and hardness,whiplash, whiplash, whiplash. She muscle-tests words and phrases. I’ve been peeling layers for years like an onion that should be dried up and powder by now.  Fear of dying she says and my arm goes limp, then up from the belly, a water stream seeking immediate exit through my eyes and the dark forest of imagination. I want to see through the trees. More words, the same effect. There is a slight convulsing as my body searches memory. I think I have learned to squeeze lemons into lemonade, that I have mastered self-care which I realize isn’t the same as healing. Suddenly, exhaustion and I’m quiet, feeling drugged inside a small constructed room. A many layered sleep transfuses me until I am nothing but a shell.
 
**
 
A Model Citizen
 
She wakes slowly from the king bed, the down comforter bunched about her. Legs stretch, hips flatten, neck reaches towards the pillow top. It’s a comfortable minute. She rises without thought. No ghosts from yesterday visit, no predictions guide her thoughts, no restraint to her habits. First things first.
 
Outdoors, a deep breath -- 
            lungs clear (check)
            neighbours surveyed (check) 
            bladder empty (check)
 
Routine has no boredom including breakfast at eight. Alert without stimulants, her energy is stored for the right activity as she shakes the morning loose, then rests on the chair patiently facing the windows. What might rock her off cue, have her awaken on the wrong side of the bed, exasperate the purity of her presence, stoke doubt in her desires? There have never been answers to these vexing questions. The cues are so well rehearsed as with all obedient beings. Right? What a good girl I say as I do every day at least two dozen times. Simple praise keeps her white-tipped tail in motion, eyes on her master; keeps her a model citizen.
 
**

The New Metrosexual is Female and She is a Madamsexual
 
A woman wearing red plaid flannel and unbranded boots appears asleep in her salon chair. She doesn’t wonder what to do with her locks one day when the dreads are gone. Her hair dresser stands on a two- foot stool and reaches in like a slow hand mixer, twisting and bunching to the rhythm of chewing gum while the woman’s eyes stay closed. She’s too strong to wince. Her arm tats creep out the cuffs of her double-layered shirt but seem afraid of the light and retreat. She has a natural immunity to excitement but if summer, she’d dream of driving a pearlescent two-wheeled chopper chariot, but it’s her steel-blue Prius out front. It’s sexy and righteous, efficient -- unlike the dreadlocks which are worth a wait while the snow bends sideways. At the right time, her flannel is ready for business. She steals a glimpse at a woman in the next chair who is losing her hair when the hairdresser says she gets stress-induced alopecia and castor oil is her go-to. The plaid woman nods because it’s a plant-based solution, but her carb-load is heavy like a front engine. She is four-seasons flannel, seasoned with ketchup over sweet potatoes. Organic all the way. She is the new metrosexual and she is a madamsexual. 
 
**
 
The In-Coming
 
He arrived to the emergency room in death’s breath just as she arrived with the still warm heart ready to rehome in his sunken chest. She noted his youthful appearance, tautness of arms, unwed finger, the life he should be living, instead… She noted him in a waning summer as he lay, weeks in a coma, taking his vitals daily, making chit-chat out of the air. Found herself sharing why she became a nurse, when she married then divorced, her life tilting on a new axis, family in Oklahoma who couldn’t comprehend her choices. She reminded his unmoved ears that he’d walk out of there one day, out to a world beating in rhythm. The day came when she found his room empty, his discharge verified. She blew what memory dust there was from off the bed, imagined a homecoming sign hanging at his door, family arms around his neck. Weeks later a youthful man approached her in the hospital corridor greeting her by name. “These flowers are for you. I heard everything you said.” 
 
**

When I Had to Read Little Women
 
My 6th grade reading teacher smelled of strong perfume, so strong I barely noticed her only the foul air strike that followed her, like Pig Pen’s cloud of dust but fragranced. She asked What did you think of that passage? I froze, choking on her Estee Lauder, my eyes fixed on her too large eye frames, wrinkled skin, disco pink lipstick, thinking about her extra toe. I thought it was punishment when she assigned Little Women, unabridged.  We had two months and 500 pages of compound sentences, sentences I had to be still for.  Meg, Jo, Amy, Beth slowly taking shape, my imagination keeping up with them. It was Jo for me. My feminist crush, caught in social expectation but armed with wit and courage. When Beth died, I imagined my grandmother’s sister passing at 16, lovely as a bird. I never told my teacher, who was mysteriously a Ms., that I too dreamed of Vanity Fair and art, books, and Paris.  That I would read it again two years later. That I would see every version brought to screen, think of my grandmother writing with her sixth-grade education, sending it off, handwritten, to the Belgian Gazette. That I would never change my name after getting married. That I would find a small mold enough to craft a wild life within or how my sisters used to call me Josephine.
 
**
 
Ice Growths
 
Ice came during the night downing wires, coating them thick as jump ropes. We kids jump to keep warm in one room with a fireplace. The six of us, huddle as mice into chairs, the rug, and every blanket. Outside, frost fields glisten, the trees droop as if in prayer, entombed in crystals.
 
On day three I enter a candle-lit bathroom with my oldest sister under the tall expressive shower head, a shock of cold buries me in terror. It is like ice flow encasing my young, small frame; those trees and I both struggling to be free.  We are preparing for a send-off until lines and heat are restored. Several white hours to Detroit, my brother and I plop on worn sofas and the smell of my four older male cousins, aunt and uncle. I sleep through breakfast and Sesame Street. In the middle of night two I learn about seats up and seats down as I fumble to the bathroom to pee, sitting carefully, gathering my little night gown but suddenly slipping through an open seat, soaked. I strip then wrap my shame into someone’s shirt on the floor. No one notices my change of appearance in the morning, my cousin’s shirt over me, wet nightgown on the floor of the bathroom, the smell of pee on my skin. I am invisible. No one wonders about a four-year-old insisting she needs to take a shower, which happens, alone, breath held under an ice-like spray because the handles only seem to go to C. For Cold. 
 
**
 
Rebecca Surmont lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has a love of corn fields, funk, and tiny things. Her written work has been featured in publications such as RockPaperPoem, Lothlorien Poetry Journal,  Amethyst Review, Steel Jackdaw, Hare’s Paw Literary, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Eunoia Review, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal. She is a leadership consultant and coach and has worked as a physical theater actor and voice over talent.