Permit in My Pocket at SilverBirchPress

I wrote a poem for Silver Birch Press' Learning to Drive series, and they published it, along with a few photos, and the story behind the poem:

Permit in My Pocket by Kymm Coveney

The photo has nothing to do with the poem, but is part of a small anecdote.



Click on the title above or the photo to read it on their wonderful site, where there are plenty of other poems and stories to read.

Girlfriends

Tina pinched my cheeks red, Jody called me stupid, and Carol threw my headband up onto the porch. All I had to do once they left was climb up and reach for it between the wooden posts. That was the easy part.

Defloration

My dress, wrapped like a collar, smells of grass.

After I kicked his face, he pulled off my boots - hips jerking, rocks scraping against my back – and heaved them into the creek.

The grass smells like warmth against my cold body.

End of an Era

Me, a stone’s throw away from dotted i’s, t’s crossed in the sand, tossed in the waves. You, a thrown stone. Each crash of wave, tumble of sand smoothes your jagged edges, while May’s full moon erases our trail across the bay.

 

Waterways

Despite all her trepidation, the jump was exhilarating; a shock of water that tugged at her, pulling her down. She let herself sink. When she did kick out, her ankle met an unmoored figurehead, perhaps, adrift in the undercurrent of the creek.

Crush

A grey sky breaks

silver, scratches pink wounds

to bleed over the ocean side

of the rock that holds you

to her. Crash and break of words,

chattering bubbles that trickle

back into the crevice

of her deep devotion, her

platonic love.

Sink or Swim

The first time I saw

the sea, I knew what it was

to drown. Held fast by

a line from the bow

of a sleek ship, the sky like

glass. Dunked in the waves.

Breath

turned to salt.

33 words added on to's original five: The first time I saw...

Tickled to be awarded silver for Trifextra 100 :)

Girls' Sports

Our high school track coach is a drill sergeant. I don’t think she’s been in the army, but I’m not about to ask. I don’t want to get close enough for her to chew me up and spit me out. In case she’s looking for an excuse. I really want her to put me on the relay team with Cheryl. Cheryl is a sprinting goddess. The thing is, like any goddess, she’s kinda self-involved. She tends to slow up at the finish line. For the photograph.

So Coach has been telling us how we have to learn to run past the finish line, stretch out and reach for it with our entire bodies. She’s after us again today.

“You ladies have heard the expression ‘win by a nose’, correct?”

We nod, but of course Cheryl has to pipe up: “That’s for horses, Coach.”

I hide behind Cheryl just in case, but Coach ignores her.

“Stick your necks out and some of you, Moriarty here, could win by a nose. And that’s good for the team.”

Comprehending, feeling like I need to share, I say: “I won by a tush once.”

“What?” Coach turns towards my voice. I step out from behind Cheryl.

“Speed skating.” I smile, thinking of my trophy. “I was ahead, about to win, when I tripped and fell on the ice, right on my keister.”

“Usually grounds for disqualification,” says Coach, about to turn away.

“Yeah,” I say, still sort of smiling. “But I slid right over the finish line, butt first.” I turn to Cheryl. “Got the trophy to prove it.”

Cheryl steps in front of me. She stands with her hand on one hip, chest out. She has the biggest boobs in school. “Can’t win a sprint ass first, can you?” she says.

“That’s it, Cheryl!” Coach hoots. “When you reach for the finish, lead with your chest. Get those tits over the finish line for the win.”

“I got the trophy to prove it,” I say again.

333 words for , including tush 3. buttocks (slang)

So You Wanna Be a Bruin

Harvey was born to be a hockey player. Snow and ice were to him what roses and red were to poets. Other kids would beg their dads to fill up little rubber pools in the summer, but Harvey would start nagging at Halloween for his dad to fill up their rink, though it would never freeze before mid December.

While his sisters plastered their walls with pictures of David Cassidy, Harvey had just one poster: Gerry Cheevers in his goalie mask. From his desk or his bed, Harvey could count the stitches drawn all over it, dreaming of the day he would bear his own NHL scars.

From the first white-edged freeze to the last slush-covered game of the season, the tough-assed kids fought over who would play goalie. Names were called and sticks were slapped on ponds all across town as pick-up games on quick-shoveled ice began.

Harvey knew he wasn’t supposed to go out on the ponds. That’s why his father made him the backyard rink, goddammit, so his mother wouldn’t have to worry about some dumb-assed townie taking a stick to his head, or pushing him onto thin ice and into freezing pond water. But Mark Conway had double-dared him at school, and the boys were all headed to Musquashcut. If Harvey was to be the town’s next star goalie, if he wanted to be in Gerry Cheevers’ league, there was no question of who would play that Sunday against the dickheads from Hingham.

When Harvey’s little brother Tommy came looking for him after church, there was no one left on the pond but Harvey. He sat holding snow to his mouth, sticking his tongue through the upside-down V in his front teeth.

‘Lemme see,’ said Tommy. Harvey took the bloody snow away and smiled.

“Wow,” breathed Tommy. “Mom’s gonna have a fit.” Harvey nodded. He motioned for Tommy to grab his skates and stick.

“Where’s your glove?” Tommy was kicking at the hardened snow. Harvey shrugged.

“Did we win?”

333 words for,  including MASK (noun) 3a : a protective covering for the face; b : gas mask; c : a device covering the mouth and nose to facilitate inhalation; d : a comparable device to prevent exhalation of infective material; e : a cosmetic preparation for the skin of the face that produces a tightening effect as it dries

Town Pier

 Photo credit: [ changó ] / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Boat launching out by the docks.

A mooring

dumped by hurricane, stranded.

Waves, seaweed, gulls.

Caustic

bite of salt.

Sand like end-of-summer dirt

duned up against a lamppost.

Ahab waiting on the tide.

33 words for , inspired by the photo.

Mano Dura

The prize Janie coveted was a pat on the head. All day long she straightened the papers on Daddy’s off-limits desk into neat piles.

Ta-da! The backhanded blow to her cheek was overkill.

 

33 words for  including at least one hyphenated compound modifier.

May 4, 1971

Cross-legged on the patio after recess, they sit in a circle and chant: ‘Hell no, we won’t go!’

Mr. Parker cringes in embarrassment over the sixth-grade rebellion, loath to remember his brother in the Asian rain.

 

This time  want 33 words plus these 3: remember, rain, rebellion.