by Diana Raab
Silence redux
Unlike others in my past, your being
is not one which hangs or hovers over me,
but you permeate and effuse my ethers,
making a mark like leaky fountain pens
we shared during our second coffee,
as we licked our tongues to chocolate covered ginger crystals,
glowing like your glistening eyes when you saw me walk out
of my boudoir dressed in black and ready to pounce
on that part of you which brought out the woman in me,
as I watched purple ink drip from its nib in a fascination
of allure and anticipation, wanting to get to know someone
or spend a life with someone one will never really know
because this ink will evaporate, dry up and become invisible
like the imaginary person you are, the day before we met,
and the year before I was silenced.
Flat tire therapy
Yesterday after five drought years
followed by fourteen rainy days,
our newly constructed neighborhood
became smothered with nails
spread across main pathways.
Without knowing it, and as luck would have it
my car rolled over one very rusty one.
Left my car in the garage overnight
and the following morning received a notification
of low air pressure in my left rear tire.
The sweet service station guy
elevated my car to examine its belly
to learn of a nail in its gentle side wall.
One new tire for sure, three more
to keep tread even—Monday morning news
while my therapist
was calling about a scheduled appointment.
A flat tire she asked, which one?
Left rear:
wait a minute, I need to check something out;
Let me tell you what that means,
She said flipping through her book.
Never mind, I said, I just need more air
Let me cancel this appointment.
Future writer
It must have been sixth grade
when I wrote my first essay,
subject details no longer crisp,
but it was surely before grandma
killed herself in her bedroom beside mine
and about the time she taught me
to type on the Remington typewriter
perched on her vanity.
All twenty of us in that classroom
seated at those old birch desks
with chairs attached
where you carefully lifted the top
so not to jam your fingers
to see inside all your
favorite writing instruments
and papers.
Outside, the large schoolyard with the
maypole signaling my birthday,
the class quietly writing,
and Mr. Lopez, my English teacher
who sometimes did the calypso
on our desks,
roamed the room peeking over
some shoulders, when suddenly
I realized he was over mine,
as he whispered into my ear
“that’s great writing, you’ll
be a writer one day.”
Only years later did his comment
stop me in my tracks and impact me,
on how childhood passions and words
live with us forever
and how what we remember
is always surprising.
Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, workshop leader, thought-leader and award-winning author of 14 books and editor of three anthologies. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She frequently speaks and writes on writing for healing and transformation. Her latest book is an anthology called, Women in A Golden State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond (Gunpowder Press, 2025). Her newest memoir is Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors (Modern History Press, 2024). Raab writes for Psychology Today, The Good Men Project, Sixty and Me, Medium, and is a guest writer for many others.