THE INNISFREE POETRY JOURNAL

   
 
Barbara J. Orton
WHAT SHE SAID

My sister’s eyes are nothing like the sun.
I still remember everything she said:
I never claimed to be a nice person.

You’re asking more than anyone can give.
Don’t call collect. Don’t call me after ten.
My sister’s eyes are nothing like the sun.

She’d walk with me for hours, when I was ten,
and lift me on her back when I was five.
I never claimed to be a nice person.

I called collect. I called her after ten.
When she hung up, I screamed into the phone.
My sister’s eyes were nothing like the sun:

she was human, she wanted to live.
You’re scaring me. You’re even scaring Dad.
I never claimed to be a nice person.

That’s it, then, Barbara. Have a nice life.
I don’t want you talking to my children.
I had a sister; I wanted the sun.
I never claimed to be a nice person.




Barbara J. Orton
Barbara J. Orton’s poems are forthcoming in Under the Rock Umbrella, edited by William Walsh and Earl Braggs. Her work also appears in two anthologies, The New Young American Poets (Southern Illinois University Press) and New Voices (Academy of American Poets); in a Web chapbook published by The Literary Review and Web del Sol (www.theliteraryreview.org); and in journals including Ploughshares, Pleiades, and 32 Poems. She received her BA and MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She lives in Washington, DC, where she works as a freelance editor.

                                    

 

Home
Current Issue
Submissions
Contributors' Notes


Carol Ashworth

E. Louise Beach

Sandra Beasley

Anne Becker

Mel Belin

Rick Cannon

Nancy Naomi Carlson

Norma Chapman

Christopher Conlon

Michael Davis

Martin Dickinson

Jehanne Dubrow

Moira Egan

Sean Enright

Perry Epes

Lillian Frankel

Martin Galvin

Rachel Galvin

Bernadette Geyer

Patricia Gray

Laurie Hurvitz

Tod Ibrahim

Bernard Jankowski

Lisa Kosow

Michael Lally

Hiram Larew

Michael H. Lythgoe

Ebby Malmgren

Dan Masterson

Ryan McAllister

Judith McCombs

Miles David Moore

Daniel Abdul-Hayy Moore

Heidi Mordhorst

Yvette Neisser

Judy Neri

Bonnie Nevel

Barbara J. Orton

Eric Pankey

Jacklyn Potter

Ellen Sazzman

J.D. Smith

Rose Solari

Alan Spears

Gary Stein

Adele Steiner

Mark Tarallo

Colette Thomas

Doug Wilkinson

Rhonda Williford

Terence Winch

Rosemary Winslow

Kathi Wolfe

Anne Harding Woodworth

Bill Wunder

More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
         

Email this poem

Printer friendly page

 

  

 

 

 

Last Updated: Sep 16th, 2007 - 08:34:32

Copyright © 2005 - 2006 Cook Communication.