Ashley Ann Eubanks When she’s not writing or rectifying the blankness of various-sized canvases, Ashley’s rescuing canoes from the commode and dancing arrhythmically to songs about sandwiches with her 2 angelic daughters in their 1688sqft of paradise on the South end of Fort Smith, AR or washing pocky down with Ramune at the only anime store in the Arkansas River Valley, owned by her husband. At night she tucks the girls in bed and gets lost in cyberspace ‘til slumber-time, visions of book deals dancing in her head. Supplemental to creative pursuits, she’s hard at work obtaining her MA in English at Arkansas Tech University-Russellville.

Four Poems (May-ish, 2011. Issue 28.)

My Unnamed Child

I mourn the loss of you, my unnamed child
of all the times I thought you'd be
but never were

Alone, at sunset,
In a dorm room of a small college
in Altus, Oklahoma the Autumn of my 18th year
I awoke from a nightmare nap
and spilled you on the floor
—you were only six weeks known.

On my porcelain throne on a sunny May afternoon
in San Marcos, Texas before I could be legally drunk
I birthed you and watched you swirl away
—you were only eleven weeks known

On a stained futon while watching TLC
in Fort Smith, Arkansas when your big sister was two
I sneezed and felt you slip away
I wrapped the towel up and took you to dump
you in a hefty bag with your sister's Huggies
—you were only thirteen weeks known.

The doctors always insisted you never were
or were but weren't, that it wasn't my
fault, that genetics are funny sometimes

you never did look human

but I feel you, my unnamed child
I feel you moving like you should
or like you would
were it not

People insist I'm crazy for thinking
for believing for knowing you're still here
these several weeks since last you left me
I think of you, my unnamed child

On The Subject of Choices

I'll just outsource my most
important job to India. There's got
to be some boarding school in Mumbai; she'll get
a scholarship for being the only white kid
—not of British descent. Then I'll
quit my other job with
a flourishing rhetorical lament to a court on
Family Law, and insist on fifty
percent of his and my mutual estate. Then
I can take my place among
the Femi-Nazis, and cut my hair
into a bob, and burn my bra, and get
my PhD,
my MD,
my JD,
my MBA,
my MFA,
and join the ASPCA,
and you can tell me how proud you are that I
kept pursuing my dreams.

Brain Surgery

Mama should just get over it.
It's not brain surgery, we said.
We didn't have the patience
for twelve-step programs
or cults that offered hope.
Having experienced our own life-traumas,
Sister and I talked well into our twenties
about what Mama ought to do.

Mama was hospital-sick as a little girl,
in her teens encephalitis took its toll.
At sixteen, she took a ride
changed the course of her life.
Three boys drove:
a secluded area, a small town, a brutal rape,
her head bashed against the rocks.
They drove her home—
broken, battered, bruised,
dignity, innocence shattered,
feeling worthless,
she begged God to let her die.
He did not honor that request.

In court the judge said "boys will be boys"
cause they were white men in the 1970's.
That autumn she was called
a whore, a slut, a tramp—
could no longer show her face in school.
She got her GED, went to community college,
a degree in Forestry;
she was afraid to go into the woods.

She met a boy, conceived a child;
they thought it was love, were wed,
he cheated, trampled her dreams.
After three children, almost a decade of her life,
came the final straw—
this man liked to rape babies.

She married his brother to give children a dad,
their marriage was based on drugs, bad sex
fidelity just didn't exist.

Mama used to drink away her painful memories,
or snort them, or shoot them, or roll them up
smoke them with a page torn out of Genesis.

We knew bits, pieces of the puzzle,
it was too much for our child-minds to understand,
like the time the block of wood fell
off the window frame in Mama's bedroom
in the old house on Bruckmuller Street,
a cubby hole, white powder in a Ziploc freezer-safe bag.
Must belong to a previous tenant, Mama said,
as she put it back, replaced the wood.
Or the syringes in the fridge,
for allergic reactions, Mama said.
Or the ring made from a spoon.
Years piled wisdom atop innocence,
til innocence broke,
I finally came to understand.

After a car accident almost killed her,
alcohol, drugs were no longer friends.
She seriously committed to twelve-step programs
cults that offered hope.

Sister called the other day;
they don't know if it was
the childhood illnesses,
or the various blows to the head,
or the chemicals she once called friends,
or if genetics played a part,
Mama's going into the hospital.
It's brain surgery, Sister said.

Fudge

You called me stupid and punished me
for my lack of domestic concern, so
I retreated to the kitchen to bandage my
cuts and bruises with Blue Bell. You came
in hours later, bearing gifts
of fried chicken and sweet tea, and explained
that I have to understand that you didn't mean to do it,
that you're normally sweet, like the sickening fudge
that rots away my teeth, tickles
my throat, and sculpts my ever-
widening ass.