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Poems by Alice E. Johansen

The Panda | Women's Issues |
Henry From the Group Home Visits Friendly's

Alice E. Johansen has been a speech pathologist, teacher of the deaf, and a writer for more years than she wishes to specify. She teaches writers' workshops at several area adult schools and three senior centers. She has had non-fiction children's articles published in Traveler magazine. Her poetry has been published in Promethean, Goldfinch, The Blank Page, and in two anthologies: Show and Tell and Collected Experience. She has won several poetry prizes, and her first collection of poetry, CLEAR CUTTING was published in 1999. She was a member of the Skylands Writers & Artists Association Workshops led by author, Daniela Gioseffi, and now teaches them herself. Alice reads often at events sponsored by the association and at other venues around NJ and she is fully versed in the NJ poetry scene. E-mail Alice Johansen regarding Skylands Writers peer workshops in writing.

The Panda

Each dawn she sniffs the air, catches the heavy odor

she'd come to loathe but could not name.

The growl and cough of huge yellow beasts

rattle the quiet as they cut and scratch

their way closer to her bamboo forest.

She watches the distant trees tremble and fall,

naked brown path lengthen, the hordes

of upright creatures shout, flail their arms,

point up the mountain toward her home,

the beasts follow their direction.

At dusk they fall silent as early

winter snow, silent as padded footfalls

in her shrinking world.

She grieves, an aging parent mourning

children who will never be.

She moves higher up the mountain,

beyond the sound and smell of forest death

to where the bamboo thins, as she soon will,

to where there is no mate, to the place

where her eternity ends.

Women's Issues

The lecture, the announcement read,

would be on "women's issues".

I crossed it off my list of things

to do on Monday evening.

I had no "issues."

The monthly one terminated

in flashing heat repeated

hundreds, thousands of times,

each a sweaty reminder

of my youth gone by.

I'd already issued two progeny,

one boy, one girl, now full grown

and dealing with their own issues,

rarely the topic of conversation

between us.

What other "women's issues" were there

to lecture on- the unnamed

juice that flowed in times of passion?

That stopped when illness overtook

my love. I had no need of it.

I thought perhaps I'd go anyway,

see if there were issues I'd missed.

I could sit in the back of the room,

bother the speaker with questions

about the importance of dead issues.

Henry From the Group Home Visits Friendly's

Henry, in stained army jacket and hat with ear flaps

slides into an empty booth and rocks

as if the seat were a rocking horse,

or a real one, and he was going somewhere.

He pulls his hat over his ears, turns up his collar

to keep out wind and cold he knows is there.

His eyes survey everything, settle on nothing.

The waitress ignores him. She knows

he has no money, won't leave a tip.

He pauses in his ride, shouts, "Milk shake!"

to no one in particular, and resumes rocking.

The waitress rolls her eyes, waits on another table.

Henry shouts louder, rocks harder.

bumps the back of the booth, the table,

rattling salt shaker, ketchup bottle, the menu

from its holder. Two patrons change their seats.

"Milk shake!" Two boys in another

booth snicker, mimic his rocking. The manager

hurries over, gives the boys a shaming look.

"Okay, what flavor?" Henry stops his steed.

"White. White milk shake. Two straws."

The horse gallops, Henry claps his hands.

Half the patrons look away, the rest stare,

all the while telling their children not to.

The manager fills the order, places

the tall, vanilla shake on the table

with two straws, a napkin. Henry stops riding,

eyes the glass. "Yeah. White milk shake."

He pulls the papers from the straws,

places them just so on the table, tucks the napkin

carefully into his frayed collar, stabs the straws

into the glass, sucks hard, without stopping for breath.

For the length of a dozen mouthfuls,

he is just like everyone else.

Copyright © by Alice E. Johansen. All rights reserved.

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