Page 34 - October 2020

SWAN

for Stephanie Emily
Dickinson and Rob Cook

a flash memoir prose poem
Cindy
Hochman

My brilliant attorney/poet father—in my mind a cross
between Clarence Darrow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and
Atticus Finch—intense lake-blue eyes, crow-black hair,
the epitome of Aquarian sensitivity, once said to me
kids can be cruel.

And they were. Especially when faced with an
abnormally pale, rat-sized, slightly off-kilter proverbial
ugly duckling sporting outdated high-water pants and
an unsightly pre-Madonna mole on her lower right chin.
They swiped my peanut butter sandwiches. They
hogged all the Oreos that had been placed lovingly in
my lunchbox by the beautiful lady who had recently wed
my dashing widower dad. And with their grubby, unkind

hands they invaded my vulnerable pockets and filched
my dollar bills and spare change, leaving only remnants
of lint and the scent of post-traumatic desolation.One
day they decided to mold something sticky into my
already gnarled and knotted hair. My Spanish teacher,
muy guapo, on whom I had the usual pubescent crush,
had to cut out the mucky sludge with scissors while my
face blazed away in various shades of scarlet and my
bowels did the Mexican Hat Dance. I don’t think I need
to add the fact that I was an anal-retentive goody-goody;
I sense that I already had you at proverbial ugly
duckling.

Then, as in most superficial transformations, Ms. Ugly

Duckling, though not eradicated, was submerged.