Lin Brummels
Jul 21, 20231 min
by Lin Brummels
The only good thing to come out of the midcentury was furniture.
You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
William Faulkner
I lied to my fam
about where I was
until two am July 4th
when I was fourteen
on a first date & ran
from my date’s ape-man
hands to a girl scout
friend’s promise to bring
me home late. Lied
to that boy, told him
not to worry about
a promise he no doubt
made to my parents to see
me home by eleven.
I lied to my university
doctor to get birth control
pills when I was eighteen
& to a State Machine
who found assumed amour,
my love & me half dressed
in a hay meadow, told him
we were engaged. Lied
to a friend’s coiffured
mother, told her, her
daughter was with me
when instead, she flew
to NY to get an abortion.
We should be past
a need to lie about sex
and its consequences.
Women face the same birth
issues today as past fifty years,
when conservative pols unearth
stale midcentury laws.
***
Lin Marshall Brummels earned a BA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a MS from Syracuse University. She’s published poems in journals, magazines, and anthologies. Her poetry chapbooks are “Cottonwood Strong” and “Hard Times,” a 2016 Nebraska Book Award winner. Her full-length collection, “A Quilted Landscape,” was published in 2021.