Stage Directions
by S.B. Merrow
A Camp Skit in Five Parts Wherein
A White Woman Plays Dead To See Where It Gets Her
(Breathe)
Part I. Wherein The Lion Lays Down with the Lamb
We Have a Late Breakfast of Potatoes
With Some Kind of Fowl Wrapped in Pale Cabbage
Funny That Today The Food is So White!
Two Campers Argue About Politics,
Resolve Their Differences By Playing Guitar
One of Them is a Big Deal in Russia She Says
But It’s Summer and We’re Here To Disengage
(Breathe)
Part II. Wherein I Go for a Dip in the Lake
10 AM Gray Sky Wild Windy Whitecaps
A Floating Brown Basket Shaped Like a Ship
Sinks Within a Stone’s Throw of the Shore
I Watch it Go Down
Jump In to Rescue Swim Towards the Bottom
The Ship’s Dark Shadow — and Bones — Scattered
Across the Lake Floor Broken Legs Jaws
Horse Heads and Other Skulls
All of Them White
(Surfacing, Breathe)
Part III. Wherein Our Rickety Docks Have All Been Rebuilt
Of Impervious Lumber on the Roughest of Footings
Strange Men Talking Guard the Piers and
Block my Emergence from the Water
Keeping Head Down Thighs Tight
I Lift and Move Their Arms Aside
Squeeze Past Dripping Wet
My Skin All White
(Breathe)
Part IV. On the Main Path
The “New Crowd” Threatens Us with AR-15s
A Friend With a Stare Warns Me to Stand Still
Resisting I Run and Am Stopped By Someone
Who Shoots Through a Pillow and Misses Me
Just Play Dead and See How It Goes
I Crawl to the Edge of a Staircase
Down
Where A Woman With Rifle Notices
Innocently I Play Dead Again
But She Lays Her Hand on My Back Until
(Breathe)
Part V. My Face White with Fear I Have to Breathe
Go Ahead Play Dead — and See Where It Gets You
End
About the Author:
S. B. Merrow lives in Baltimore where she writes poems and repairs concert flutes for professional musicians. Recently, her work has been accepted by Salamander, Nimrod International Journal, Tishman Review, Gyroscope Review, and other journals. The Naugatuck River Review selected two poems, as finalist and semi-finalist, in their 2018 contest. Her chapbook, ‘”Unpacking the China,” was the winner of QuillsEdge Press’ 2016 chapbook competition.
