two poems
by Sharon Weightman Hoffman
I Contemplate a Phone Call to Marcel Marceau
Like many people, I have hated mimes
with their white faces and quizzical eyebrows,
leaning into the wind or trapped
in invisible boxes. Shut up,
I wanted to shout at them,
even though they were saying nothing.
Unlike many people, I have hated mimes
on principle. How dare they
act like art is possible
without words? This hurts
a writer’s soul. So, comically,
karmically, I've been assigned
to do an interview
with the Master of Silence,
Marcel Marceau.
By phone, Florida to France.
It’s 1994, no Facetime yet,
so at least I’m sure
he won't be miming what he has to say.
I think of what I know –
born in the 20s, French, funny,
silk hat with a red rose. Right?
He laughs, he cries, he captures butterflies.
Bip Bip Bip. A clown.
Then I watch the clips.
I was so wrong. What idiot
hates the genius just because
they hate his fifth rate imitators?
Je suis desolee.
Here is the truth.
After the war, words no longer mattered.
Arbeit macht frei.
After Auschwitz, what is there to say?
Words float away like ash.
Marceau’s father was arrested
in a Gestapo raid
and gassed at Birkenau.
Zyklon B. In what world
do we need a word like that?
Marceau once said
that he no longer can believe in God,
but when he is on stage,
he feels God enter him.
I want to know – wordlessly –
what cannot be said
in French, in English, in any language
remaining on this broken earth.
When I call him on the telephone,
I want for him to say to me
that Bip survives,
his body its own language,
a story of ragged hope.
His hat is crumpled, its flower
is crushed, but it’s still
scented like a rose.
The rose is still red.
Is that enough?
I want him to tell me
that it is enough.
Queen of Cowhouse Island
Here's what she had:
1. six feet of height
2. two hundred pounds of muscle
3. six days of schooling
4. a full skirt
5. a white apron,
6. a man's felt hat
7. a gun in a fancy black pocketbook.
Lydia bought some barren land –
already timbered, practically worthless.
She could wait for it to reseed itself.
When the depression closed the bank,
she banged on the glass
until they let her in.
When she came out,
her money was:
1. in her purse
2. keeping her gun company.
But it was lonely for a childless queen at 63.
1. So, she married Melton.
2. Or, as she called him, Doll Baby.
3. Perfectly legal. He was 21.
Not everything Melton did was legal, though.
The State of Florida wanted
to put him in the pen for
20. years.
When the sheriff and his men
came to get him, she met them on the porch, with:
1. a smile and
2. a shotgun.
“That's far enough,” said the Queen of the Swamp.
BIO: Sharon Weightman Hoffmann is a writer based in Atlantic Beach, Florida. Publications include The Hooghly Review, New York Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives (Harvard University Press), Paddler Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, Letters, Wild Roof, Sho, and other magazines. Awards include fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts and Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs, and two Pushcart nominations.