by Cynthia Yatchman
Abundant Woman is Done with your Veiled Symmetry
When you say ocean, you really mean
my immense body as heat—as source. You mean you
want to envelop your being in the mass of my body.
Roiling with the problem of this woman
as water—mad unhinging for making
you speak in symbols of need; you want
the creases of this wave or that wave or the sounds
held in the pupillary distance between.
Yes Virginia, Third Floor, to the Right of the Escalator
This woman needs
to buy a dress for a funeral. Yesterday
a girl came to find a first suit for a real job.
Three kids at her ankles, she had been
working nights at a convenience store in
outlying Sacramento.
Coral lips would search
for a dress to wear to the theater
with her often unavailable
husband. This creature needs
jogging sweats, she tells us she is an
Autumn. This state worker requires
a selection of business
skirts to soften, her time
is extremely valuable. At the morning
rally, the store manager says
phenomenal, thirteen times. One seeks
the slinkiest dress in the junior’s plus
section, not for a husband.
They rummage the clearance
rack for worth. The substance
of a shell, any clear reminder.
I am abundant. Woman. See me.
Through a brunette bob, she screamed
call a manager, I want to speak right now.
What does a manager really manage
anyway? Expectations of humanity.
The physical implements that are moved
beyond the threshold. She would have all.
She pointed to the woman who knew
the least amount of English on our floor
I’ll have your job! Pointed to me, and
yours. What are you? Little girl.
I’ll heave your head, she pointed
to the sky and all the attendant gods.
I once told a girl I was training
When someone unhinges
into something brutal, they feel
less than human, need
to assert a semblance of existence.
They are groping the cosmos for mean
-ing, and only finding dust.
Your job as another human with need is to
correct them. When they tell you, you are
worthless and replaceable. You correct that
behavior. Replace it with your own. You turn
the mirror around, and show them how
they are weaponizing their grief.
There is a woman hunched in the back
dressing room in an overpriced bra
she bought three years
before this; when she was two sizes smaller
and he was still alive.
The creamflood gasped over the
stained fabric in her grief.
He’s gone and I need
a dress. It can’t be blue. I have no
size. I haven’t bought a dress since
I was young. Young. Gone.
I knelt beside her and held her
hand. My knees burnished from
hours of folding. My arms tired
from wracking all of this baggage.
We’ll find something dear.
Her private moment, a deluge
beyond the department. The house
wares men would snicker later
in the lunchroom. Their echoes
swarming the space of my own
flesh as I pushed cheap rice
in a circle. A round object
observing from the corner
of a shared room.
Kari A. Flickinger was a 2019 nominee for Best-of-the-Net and the Rhysling Award. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley. Find her: kariflickinger.com @kariflickinger.
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist and art instructor. With an M.A. in child development and a B. A. in education, she has a strong interest in art education and teaches art to adults, children and families. A former ceramicist, she studied with J.T. Abernathy in Ann Arbor, MI. After receiving her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington she changed to 2D work and has stayed there since, working primarily on paintings, prints and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections and has been shown nationally in California, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon and Wyoming. She has exhibited extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, Seattle PaciNic University, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the PaciNic Science Center.