Two Poems by Linda Surratt Troxler

Escaping the Attic

Call me no name other than my own:
Woman –
hear how the sound of it rises and swells like ocean waves—
or else leave me nameless.
Do not call me Bertha, because you think it suits.
Call me Antoinette –
bold, full of life,
wearing red because it deepens the color of my eyes.
Call me Edna –
walking through Kentucky wheat.
Call me Jennifer –
stitching a legacy of tigers.
Call me no other name but mine,
because I have opened my arms,
leaving my attic tower –
not lending the use of my hair –
capturing wind, sun, sky, sea,
winging upward toward the sound of my solitary name.


Crossing into the Wild

I only need to take a few steps
off my front porch
to cross into the wild.

Some ladies,
dressed in cool linen and silk,
sip iced tea in glass sunrooms;
but I spend early summer mornings
and late balmy evenings
mowing wild grass,
wishing for a Ballentyne lawn:
cultivating wild daisies and
dandelions instead.
Tossing fallen brown pinecones
into the wood’s edge,
tugging honeysuckle vines
entangled in underbrush,
taking breaths of sweet perfume
as I pull at stubborn roots,
cutting green life short.

Pricking my finger on a briar bush thorn,
I wait on a prince
to break the spell
as I sleep in old white tennis shoes,
with no laces,
tainted red with clay
and bloodstained leather gloves
that reek of mown grass and gasoline.
Sweat trickling down my forehead
mixes with tears as I
cross into the wild
once more,
footprints leading to the middle
of the wooden bridge in the backyard,
then no further.

{Poetry by Linda Surratt Troxler}