What Couldn’t Be Fixed. Poems by Connie Wieneke, selected by Ron Mohring as Number Four in Volume Twelve of our Summer Kitchen Chapbook Series.

Release date:  August 11, 2024 [49 copies]
25 pages
$12.00 SOLD OUT

Cover: vintage end papers (digital scan)

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Since moving to Wyoming in 1983, Connie Wieneke has worn many hats, from bookseller to bookkeeper, but has remained with the same husband. She has downsized from a dozen hens to two who keep hanging on, despite sub-zero temps and neighborhood hawks and weasels. Part of her community work includes fostering collaborations between artists and writers. She he is also the recipient of two literary fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council.

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Trailer Park Women

Just a smidgen. My mother’s fingers
pincered air smaller than her toothy grin.
By turns she sent me to ask one neighbor
 
and then another for the odd cup of sugar 
or flour. Say we just ran out. Anyone could see
what was asked for more than a smidgen, this

the skosh she wanted. Dirty aprons. Housecoats.
No slammed screen doors. Never that flat out
NO! Never the knife edge of something
 
I didn’t know the name of but craved.
A hungry confirmation my family had grown
spots or fangs, clear signs, outside the pale.

Trailer park women brought up
like me polite to a fault hurried me in,
handed over more than I could hold.
 
A red kimono doll in her lacquered case.
A book they knew I wanted to read. Here.
And don’t ever act like you’re begging.

[ Our thanks to Stand for first publishing this poem ]

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Thank you for supporting this poet!

Limited edition: only 24 copies were available from the press, with 25 copies going to the author. Our copies have sold out.