Poetry by Liz Alani

       Justin Meissen CC




REQUIEM FOR FUN


“I never got to have enough fun” 
Sighed my quirky jewel of a mother
With such profound loss
That fun became a stone in her mouth 
In her German southern twang 

She lost touch with joy 
after war and rape and the things that undo a girl 
And her once upon a time self 
Her frivolous whimsical being 
Slipped away with innocence 
Cheshire cat dissolving into air 

But like an opened summer hydrant  
Mirth sprang up from her
Uncouth and unexpected 
Announcing itself in wild giggles
Or crooked gap-tooth grins 
Or the oompah-pah of an accordion 
As she stood with that bulky squeezebox, 
Earnest look on her face, 
and push-pulled a kooky polka ditty

That was my mother, crazying the air with sound
Her whole body engaged
Never knowing her dizzying effect
A beauty with height and lips and presence 
A force with no channel for her strengths
Until triple surgeries robbed her verve

Stoic on her third hospital bed  
Rubbing her shaved peach fuzz hair
She spoke not of leaving her mark on this world 
She sang only a dirge for fun
Like it was a long-lost friend
Flinging out her hands as if to grasp it
And twirl it, hiccupping through the air
One last time.

​




GROWING YOUNG


At age five you were a jackpot of instincts
all coos of joy and wails of hunger. 
Enchanted with your body--
the curl of your bendy fingers and the rolls of your belly. 
The world was magic! 
Everything enthralled you, from pink tulle to pinky toes.

Cut to age twenty-five: you have absorbed 
a million falsified, hyper-sexualized images of women 
and measure yourself against them. 
You are aware of your feminine power
Yet socialized to diminish it. 
Wavering between power and nothingness is a mindfuck: 
are you beautiful or basic, object or spirit?

Cut to age forty-five: 
You are a pageant of opulent flaws
Not drum-tight and lush limbed and dewy
But scandalously at home in your skin.
You have the wisdom to marvel at your totality
To rhapsodize the endless wonder of you
To find your way back to that pink-tulled five-year-old 
and grow young again. 

​


​Liz Alani is an award-winning author who spent two decades as a nomadic model. Her poetry and prose explore selfhood and objectification, trauma and grief, the power of aging, and the pursuit of peace. She lives in Austin. lizalani.com