Two Poems
by Sharon Kennedy-Nolle
SONNET IN TANTRUM
The party over, our kids come tripping from a tip-top day
with a clutch of colors, goody bags in tow.
After backseat brawling, they’re eager to show the Haribos,
Dots, Nerds; now squabbling over Laffy Taffy trades.
You start scowling, peeved over this joking in spades.
Too much sugar—it’s always the little things that trigger
your demands for surrender; no treats for bad behavior.
They laugh and run, trying to transform yell to game.
You give chase and catch up; wrench one wrist
until all’s out of hand; undeterred, spoiled twerps,
the children scream and dive for the Swedish Fish
who swim in the trash you’ve dumped to stomp the sweets,
jumping as if on some flaccid trampoline, you jerk
till tie-dyed dust rainbows the floor in poor, runed wish.
SPEECH ACTS
Stranger asks: “Where did you get your red hair?”
You: “I bought it in a store.”
Me: “Patrick, you haven’t even touched your corn.”
You stick your pinkie in it, then say, “See, I touched it.”
Second grade teacher: “What happens when we don’t obey the rules?”
You: “We start a revolution!”
Showstoppers, culled from my journal,
pair well with a forgotten portrait of you,
boxed, in black tissue, a photo shoot
(the winning auction bid
from that snob school you suffered through)
8 x 10 black-and-white, three-quarter profile,
at age 9, your gaze is unclouded, curious,
onyx eyes owning light
(you hated the fussy photographer,
the time wasted in her yard
on a still June afternoon,
having to pose by her inground pool, her kids splashing, laughing)
you buttoned up, hot, in your knit Chess Club shirt,
hair sweaty, tousled, stuck; lips parted toward smile,
as if you’re about to say
you look as if about to say…
BIO: A graduate of Vassar College, Sharon Kennedy-Nolle received an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop as well as a doctoral degree in nineteenth-century American literature from the University of Iowa. She also holds MAs from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and New York University. In addition to scholarly publications, her poetry has appeared in many journals. Her chapbook, Black Wick: Selected Elegies was a semi-finalist for the 2018 Tupelo Snowbound Chapbook Contest. Chosen as the 2020 Chapbook Editor’s Pick by Variant Literature Press, Black Wick: Selected Elegies was published in 2021. Kennedy-Nolle was winner of the New Ohio Review’s 2021 creative writing contest. It was also chosen as a 2021 finalist for the Black Lawrence Press’s St. Lawrence Book Award, a 2021 and 2022 semifinalist for the University of Wisconsin Poetry Series' Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes, and a 2022 semifinalist for the Two Sylvias Press’ Wilder Prize and for the Brick Road Poetry Contest. Recently appointed the Poet Laureate of Sullivan County for 2022-2024, she lives and teaches in New York. Kennedy-Nolle has been awarded a Poet Laureate Fellowship for 2023-2024 from the Academy of American Poets.