Dangerous Places
Megan would say Mexico although
I love it there: the music and the cobblestones,
the roosters and the barking dogs, all
the kindest people smiling, even toothless,
the ones who let me hold their babies.
So I must remind her there are more guns
in Iowa than in the hands of the cartel.
Before I journeyed to Iquitos
friends mentioned all the vaccinations
for cholera, malaria, and yellow fever
should have alerted me to be concerned
about the trip along the Amazon
where showers meant don’t swallow
and rivers meant don’t swim.
Before her liver failed my sister said
there was a line she’d drink to, then try
to keep the high just so, a surfboard
smooth inside a curling wave, a car
careening on two wheels, or child’s top
that circles slower until the final crash. Just
the right amount of beers to balance on the edge.
When I was six I would not go down
the narrow steps at grandma’s house
skinny treads of chipped linoleum
no railing but the painted stone wall leading
to the darkest dark and to the cistern where
we kids were told the bear lived,
as black as Catholic sin.
And once there was a boy, more near a man,
muscled, heavy bearded,
experienced far beyond me who,
listening to the bellows of my breath,
and noticing the heat along my body
stopped embracing me in our dark back hall
and refused to kiss me further.
• • •
Beth Spencer’s poetry has been recognized in many contests and journals. She was selected to participate in a year-long mentorship in poetry with Gretchen Marquette at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, and chosen for a week-long workshop with Marge Piercy in Cape Cod. She was selected for a Fulbright Teachers scholarship to travel to Japan. Beth was an educator for 27 years and honored for both her teaching and counseling. She was nominated for the Hall of Fame at the school district where she had worked.