thoughts on becoming a crone
poetry by elizabeth glixman
There are variegated color hairs on my head,
Yarn all fuzzy and wild
One inch from my scalp there is red
Lush auburn youth.
Below the white
Threads winked with gray waving,
Roots visible like tree arms against the sky.
Crone means old ewe,
An old you
That you do not recognize.
Do old ewes have gray hair graze on grass?
Are they sent to float on arctic ice flows
While families plant corn?
I look close
Seeing if my hair is wiry enough
To be woven—
A blanket to warm old knees or hoofs—
Two toned auburn gray
Auburn blond gray
Light brown crone blanket for sale.
None of us start life as crones
I started as a thought,
Then graduated to being an egg
Then a soft spoken shape that cried.
Yesterday I saw an angioma on my arm
Red like a berry
Blooming on my skin that hasn't felt like silk for years.
I talc myself
My crotch is raspy.
When this happens we crones
know who we are underneath
our colored hair and lifted chins
Double folds speared like fishes in the sea
Devoured by hunters looking for sustenance
And a buck.
They can't leave flesh alone too long,
It gets unruly.
We crones know who we are
When our fingers glow from touching
Words that slip bridges in our mouth
Longer than the Great Wall of China
Take heart, it is the demise of fertility that makes
Minds bright.
*
Being friends with your inner Crone is not easy.
I look in the mirror
Wonder who it is I am watching.
My Great Aunt Julia stares back
From the supermarket parking lot years ago.
Aunt Julia with dark eyebrows that needed tweezing
And white hair going yellow
And arms that asked for help.
Walking with rocks in each orthopedic shoe
Asking strangers to carry the weight of milk cartons,
Or open a jar or tell her how to get home.
I could deny growth
Never look in the mirror again
Never ask how to get home.
Like the female crone strippers on Sunday TV
I might wiggle my behind
Swing tassels and shake hips
And take off my clothes
wearing only fluffy feathery boas
Hiding nothing old in the Las Vegas dessert
where Georgia O'Keefe saw the beauty of bones.
about the author
Elizabeth P. Glixman's fiction and poetry have appeared online and in print
in publications including In Posse Review, Wicked Alice Poetry Journal, Subtle Tea, 3 A.M. Magazine, Tough Times Companion, a publication of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and Frigg.
Elizabeth's author interviews, articles, book reviews, and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in a variety of publications including Eclectica, The Pedestal Magazine, Whole Life Times, Spirit of Change, Hadassah Magazine, and the anthologies, Chocolate for A Woman's Soul II and Cup of Comfort For Women.
