Kate Ellen Braverman’s poem “Classified Ad” appeared in our Winter 1975 issue.
I teach fourth gradebatik and weave plant hangerswith seashells bound in the yarns,pine cones and stones glassyfrom waves and age.I make ceramic vases and cups,bake breads, dance and read books.Last summer I hiked forty-seven milesalone in the High Sierras.I do not smoke or take drugs.I have lived four yearsin a cottage on a hill.My windows face the sky.I am responsible.
Painters have shared my bed,stockbrokers and psychologists.All are strangers,sleeping encased in sheetstrange unreachable moundsfearful I will touch their dreams.They close doors while they pissand decline my shower.Breakfast finds them angrystaring at a black well of coffeecomplaining my cats bit their toes,restless, wanting to changetheir underwear. Winding watches.Bound to other things.
I want to love a blue-eyed manand have blue-eyed babies,sleek and smooth as cats.And a yard perhaps,to grow spices and flowers.I am twenty-sixI embroider, I sing.I am punctual and clean.
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