Complicated Love

I posted a version of this on fb and Instagram but my nephew, Mark Danowsky, a wonderful young poet who has an online poetry journal (his mother’s son for sure), liked it and suggested I post it on Substack. So here it is with more images.

Today is, or would be, my sister’s birthday. Her passing remains a shock to me and a loss, despite the fact that we had a slew of arguments over the years and a serious one close to what became the end of her life. But we also shared that lifetime, good and bad. She was my sister the poet, the writer and amazing reader, who taught me to love literature, high and low. Later, she was the first person to read my books and my very first editor. I would often read her long passages I was working on over the phone (for hours; can you imagine?) and she listened patiently offering suggestions and giving praise when I needed it. Likewise, she’d read me rough drafts of poems. I remember specifically the poem she wrote when Elvis Presley died. She’d heard about his death on the car radio, pulled over, wrote a draft, then called me, and it was brilliant. (As a young girl, she’d collected pictures of Elvis from magazines and newspapers and had been a fan, something that always seemed out of character for my shy older sister).

As kids we could not have been more different. I was outgoing and “funny” (overcompensation for my insecurity, something I became really good at hiding). Bobby was shy and socially awkward, a surprise one might suppose because she was always so pretty and attracted the attention of boys, though as she once said to me about the way she looked, “I don’t know what to do with it!”

My sister got married for the first time when I was in junior high, and we talked often and then a lot when things got rough. She confided many things over the years which will remain her business. Though I could write a lot about her, all I will say is that she was smart, complicated, often surprisingly funny, difficult, very private and very talented. We shared things that were strictly between us, and despite any arguments or harsh words or hurtful incidents, and though I don’t talk about it, I fucking miss her!

My sister’s Elvis Poem (I can’t get the breaks and formatting to work correctly here. I think you can find better version at One Art: A Poetry Journal.)

Dead, they said, at 42 or 45,

Each media man giving another age.

The 42 or 45 year old

First

Most memorable

Rock star

Dead, at 42 or 45, of an ailment…

His glitter

His gyrating hips

His pelvic thrust

All dead and stopped.

He, hospitalized often over the years

For excess weight

Drugs

Loneliness

The loss of sex appeal.

Yet, there I was, at 14, screaming for you.

Me, a shy girl,

A wallflower at the Friday night dances,

Unable to move my hips and eyes into anothers,

My glass of punch spilling

As I tried to get it and myself

Back

To my wall position.

There I was,

A quiet girl, a bookworm,

Forgetting to tell the guys they had nice

Hair

Hands

Thighs

Saying things like Milton used his Book

Of Revelation to graph his heaven.

There I was at 14

On the floor

Screaming at the thrust of your pelvis, your thighs,

Sighing and swooning,

And for the first time the girls all said

Look! She screams and wants him.

She’s joined his fan club.

She just may be one of us.

How I wanted to be one of them

Dying for your sounds, your body,

Your tongue in my mouth.

And for the first few seconds when you sang,

I joined the screaming crowds

I was 14,

And the girls grabbed at my hands and arms saying,

Isn’t he beautiful!

Can’t you just die!

And I saying,

Yes, oh yes!

And though I didn’t know if I wanted you,

I occasionally needed them and their touch;

And you did that for me

Taking me out of my room of book towers

Into your realm of glitter and sexuality,

Into places I needed for a moment before I could return

To my books,

To myself.

And now you who helped me with a certain loneliness

Are dead of loneliness.

Once they pulled for your hair, your clothes, your thighs,

Then left you alone saying,

Hey, baby. We’re done with you.

You’re too old.

Your hips too fleshy.

Your tool not distinctive.

But, look, you were good!

We screamed for you once.

Had fan clubs for you.

But no more.

Your glitter is gone and we don’t want you.

Well, I am sad.

Driving along the New Jersey Turnpike

I hear of your death and pull my car alongside.

I get out.

Pick a black-eyed Susan,

Some daisies,

Sit holding them,

Remembering your sounds,

When your first movements

Allowed me to scream with the others,

To have them hug me,

And, for once, to take me as one of their own.

When your appearance made me, for a moment,

A typical teenager swooning at the sight of a rock star.

Roberta Santlofer