Poetry by Stephanie Kendrick

               ​Christian Collins CC



​
En Route to a Family Christmas

Every year we pass the same schoolhouse, 
the one that never had indoor plumbing, 
never felt the quake of fluid rushing 
behind its walls, or under its parquet tiles.

I confess to him, it’s the one I’d park behind, 
under moons because no one could see me 
from the road, and there’s something romantic
about hiding, and about a moonlit schoolhouse.

He wasn’t one of them, in the passenger seat
of my ’95 Mustang, so I’m careful to leave out
the memorable details—a calloused palm stained
with motor oil, a mustache sweet with nicotine.  

He has some stories too: a covered bridge off 56
that can’t bear the weight of anything anymore. 
We pass it two miles from the schoolhouse. 
He inhales and holds it. I try not to wonder

what she smelled like, how his hands warmed 
inside her thighs, how their lips emulsified, or
if that mustache still smells of menthol.

And just like every year before, as we pass
the covered bridge I take his hand,
bring it to my lips as we both exhale. 




​
Below the Surface

Sometimes the river looks this way, 
rushes west as though there’s still gold 
to discover, as if teenagers who skinny dip 
inside her are blood-thirsty like bats,
soak their claws in her mouth, then
pull them out before the leeches take hold. 

Sometimes it slows enough to reflect 
their faces like my grandfather’s Buick 
as it coasts to full stop in his garage. 
He takes a peppermint from his suit,
twists away the plastic and 
convinces his mouth it is not candy. 

Sometimes it stops completely, 
forced frozen by a February breeze, 
my sisters driven mad by living underwater 
scratch the surface and learn 
to breath with closed mouths,
learn to swim with fists, 
yes sometimes, 
the river looks like this. 





Solstice Steals their Bones, 
Turns them to Snow

First it was Mammaw, piano chained
to her back so she’d carry it with her
to Heaven. She said she would play it
to whichever God met her at the gate
ready to kiss the arthritis from her
fingers, put the pain back into her spine
where it belonged. The doctors offered
her a halo when she was thirteen
and she wore it with her everywhere, 
never mind the screws in her temple,
she sang hymns and fancied herself Jesus. 

Then went John with wind that shifted
the hips of blue grass and whistled 
through our ears, taught us the taste of twang
and the ache that comes with being off-
key even after all the music had stopped. 
Fans flooded the paper with memories, 
a river of ink spilled to scrawl every way his sound
still moved through masses, tickled ears
of his widows, curled the tongues
of all of us, mouthing every word he ever sang. 

Now Dave wheezes ballads of Yukon, 
the time the temperature fell
to 80 below. As locals stepped outside,
their breath hissed as it froze, turned to dust 
midair before falling to the ground. 
When he says he’d like to travel North
to die, he really means he wants his breath 
to turn to music again, force it from his lungs
make it shout in the air so that when 
the neighbors jump from their skins, 
he can say it was his voice 
that moved them. ​



​
Stephanie is the author of Places We Feel Warm (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2021), editor of “Periodical Poetry.”, and co-host of Athens County’s Thursday Night Open Mic. Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Lunch Bucket Brigade, Northern Appalachia Review, Poets Reading the News, Still: The Journal and elsewhere. Visit her website to check out more of her work, and upcoming events at stephthepoet.org.