Where Did “Sugar On a Rope” Come From?

Guest blogger,
Sherry O’Keefe

Photos: Sherry O’Keefe

He told me potatoes were complicated. I know this because I wrote it on a scrap of paper and saved it in my back pocket. Some conversations later, I retrieved the scrap of paper from the lint trap in my dryer. Apparently I had laundered his words.

The scrap of paper looked a bit like this old leaf, except for these words in faded ink: potatoes are complicated and some poems are born in badness.

But now I can’t remember what we were talking about. I no longer know where these words came from.

Do you have such scraps of paper? I don’t always know what to keep and what I should let go. I’m not the sort to let anything go. There are scraps of paper all over my house. For example, these are the words on a book of matches next to my kitchen sink: We don’t even need to talk about houses on the hill.


As writers, we struggle with the hanging on and the not knowing when to let go of words we encounter in our lives.

What about the man at work who wishes his daughter was kinder — can I walk away from that? Sometimes when I leave at the end of the day, he is headed home, too. In these quick passings we have exchanged sound-bites about our lives. He rebuilds cars, wishes his daughter was kinder, remodels houses, lost an infant grandson. There is safety in thirty-second moments.

Yesterday as we both headed out to start our separate weekends, he spoke of an in-law coming to visit. He’s a rich man, but there is only one thing the man talks about: dinners someone else paid for.


**

My daughter sits at the table with me. I am working on a manuscript. Our pups are trying to climb onto her lap, but one weighs 75 pounds and the other is a 50 pound tank. She points out the scars on her delicate Irish skin from past encounters with our dogs. Then she tells me she has one good-feeling-scar. It is like a worry stone, she says. When she can’t sleep at night, she finds the scar and rubs it. Its smoothness and indented curve soothe her.  Here, she takes my hand, feel. 

The sliver of a moon on her calf reassures me. This, too, finds it way onto a scrap of paper.

**

To my friend stuck in the middle of writing a short story: forgive me for capturing your confession on a Post-It Note, now tucked inside my wallet: I can’t think of anything bad to write.

Forgive me. When you talk, I listen. I do. You use panoramic strokes, coaxing me to see the bigger picture. And for a bit of time, I am right there with you, seeing the big picture. And in fact, I am enjoying the wide view your words offer:

Then, as we travel around the curve of the big picture, chattering and laughing,

the poetry-gene activates and I am on my knees, examining something minute, something telescopic. You don’t realize I’m not beside you anymore. I don’t realize this either.

Later, I will find more random words on scraps of paper:

sugar on a rope

little men lined up like starfish on the edge of a tidal pool

Did anything happen in 1882?

Some of these words will find homes in my poems. Some of these words will become lint in my dryer. And (I am sorry to admit) I am not likely to remember our talk, or our walk along the river, the wide blue sky, the way back to your car. I won’t remember taking these photos.

Sherry O’Keefe, a descendent of Montana pioneers, a mother of two, sister to four, cousin to dozens, credits/blames her Irish upbringing for her story-telling ways. She is a graduate of MSU-B and the author of Making Good Use of August. Her most current work has appeared or is forthcoming in Switched-on Gutenberg, PANK, Terrain.org, THEMA, Avatar Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Two Review, Babel Fruit, Soundzine, The High Desert Journal and Main Street Rag. Currently working on a full book of poetry, Loss of Ignition, Sherry is the poetry editor for Soundzine. Visit her blog, too much august not enough snow.

Want to write for The Writer’s Life blog? Drop us an email at thewriterslife@hercircleezine.com.

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