99poems/whistling

“My father and mother both
used to warn me that
“A whistling woman and
a crowing hen,
would surely come
to no good end.”
Alice Walker, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful

A whistling woman,
reading the quote
I want to become one.
The psychic says:
return to a tone,
whistle in order
to heal from the way
words can stab.
I back out of the drive
and do my best,
I never could whistle
though I tried and tried,
just as I tried to learn
to wink.
Both accomplishments,
I was certain would
put me on some other
side, the one where
everyone else stood.
Winking I finally got,
thanks, in part, to my
handsome uncle, who
rarely came.
He used to ask
if I would marry
him when I grew up.
I didn’t know
he didn’t mean it.
And so assumed I
would. He married
someone else, a woman
who knew how to blow
smoke rings. Another
great talent I never
acquired.
And I only saw him
once again.
I tried to phone him
recently, my father’s
last sibling, but found
no one home.
I was afraid
to know the truth
that day, was he
alive or dead.
I have been practicing
my whistling instead,
sucking my breath
in, as I always did.

5/6/99