insignificant

B. Elizabeth Beck

Evening Street Press

insignificant
B. Elizabeth Beck

EVENING STREET PRESS

Sacramento, CA

EVENING STREET PRESS

 January, 2022

Sacramento, CA

COVER BY
KEVIN R. NEUMANN

ALL RIGHTS REVERT TO THE AUTHOR ON PUBLICATION

© COPYRIGHT 2022 BY EVENING STREET PRESS.

ISBN: 978-1-937347-12-3

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

WWW.EVENINGSTREETPRESS.COM

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
insignificant
 Contents
18 USC § 2340
the federal criminal prohibition against torture

“severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm

caused by or resulting from— (A) the intentional infliction or
threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

Grandma’s Mink & Army Jackets 5

White Picket Fences 8

insignificant 9

Lacunar Amnesia 10

Code of Conduct, 1976 12

Virtue, by definition 13

Mother’s Bounty 14

Summer, 1975 15

incest survivor 16

Temper Tantrum 17

Plea 19

First Menses 20

He says, 22

Flashback: waterboarding 23
 Telephone Static 25
Easter Poem 26

Secret, 1972 27

Bunker 28

central intelligence 29

Decoding 30

Conspiracy 31

Lawyer 32

poor father pete 33

Collect Call 34

It’s over now, 36

Flashback: brainwashing 37

Broken Geraniums 39
We Were Geraniums 40

His name was Skip, not unlikely 42

Bandaged & Fallen 43

Christopher 44

Photograph of my father 46

Holes 47

War Memorial, 2011 48

White 50

Survival Guide 51

Take heart, kid 52

 Snapshots
Monday Morning, the aftermath 54

black ink on white parchment 58

Military Merit Medal 59

last night I dreamed my mother died 61

If I could boomerang the truth 62

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 63

Flashback: double-speaking 66

Acknowledgments 67
 Grandma’s Mink & Army Jackets

Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence,
but of those who have already taken possession of their future. -Coco Chanel

I: Edelweiss & My Mother’s Apron

My mother’s family speaks Hungarian, German, English all in one

sentence. We kiss on both cheeks, exclaiming Sevasz! hug &
interrupt; yell to be heard, reek of garlic, onions crowd around a
large table to eat goulash & Paprikás, cucumbers, plums, apple
strudel & Dobos torte served on flamboyantly hand-painted
pottery.

Omi plants blackberries to wind around a chain-link fence. Wolfie,

Chris & I pick to eat until our stomachs ache. We reach for glass
bottles of 7-Up corked with those rubber & metal stoppers we open
then chug; each taking our turn.

Emi Tante picks up her guitar; Fili Bácsi turns to his piano their
strains of Mozart, Hyden, Bach fill the room with ferns, palms &
jades dance in the solarium Aunt Martha carefully plants with
exotic blooms I have since potted in my own home. Their music
floats over the end of the evening. Reverend Uncle Emil only a
shadow in my memory.

I consciously erase him from these snapshots to forget echoes of

other flashes of weekends at Emi Tante & Uncle Emil’s home she
stored racks of beautiful clothing in the basement she would let me
spend hours training me to appreciate the artistry of fashion until
Uncle Emil would hold me hostage on his lap in the living room
jack himself off inside his pants by grinding against my bottom
while Emi Tante made crepes with clotted crème, blackberries,

5
dark chocolate in the kitchen. I stared at the black & white keys
of my aunt’s piano she used to practice hymns which, after a
while, began to waver.

II: Silver Spoons & Daddy’s Little Girl

I have a photograph of myself at age eleven, thin, brown-eyed girl

in a cotton nightgown, sun bleached, long blonde hair cascading
over Grandma Helen’s mink jacket she let me try on for just one
moment, a result of too many Manhattans at the country club
after Grandpa Harry finished nine holes where we ate roast beef,
shrimp cocktail, petit fours from buffets decorated with carved ice
sculptures — back when white jacketed waiters used little
sterling silver brushes to sweep away crumbs & ashes because
everyone smoked in those days.

Hypocrisy is the worst form of cowardice like my father’s ivy

league education, his legacy as only son to a doctor & a debutant.
Raised in a world where manners float between the ice cubes in the
cut crystal glass of scotch & tea in bone china served at weekly
bridge games on linen tablecloths in the living room where white
& ivory keys polished by the maid could not wipe clean the shame,
degradation, dark secrets that echo through the hallways of their
life.

My father carefully removed his seersucker suit, Brooks Brothers tie &
penny loafers before he climbed under my Laura Ashley nightgown.

6
III: Black Kohl

That same mink jacket I inherited at sixteen I wore over a

Grateful Dead t-shirt tucked into worn Levis paired with
multiple strands of my grandmother’s pearls around a neck that
held a carefully made-up face kohl lining the same brown eyes,
lashes extended with mascara. When I wasn’t gallivanting
around in my ultimate fuck you- rebellious, chic I-know-I’m-
beautiful-&-wealthy demeanor, I shrugged on my army jacket
with the fiberglass lining that never zipped, never buttoned,
never closed so I bought it to drive my mother crazy & I adored
it & still wear every time
I teach high school students Catcher in the Rye.

It is my own red hunting hat.

My cry for the sanctity of innocence.

Protect the children, Holden! Rail

against authority & scream
at the top of your lungs, “Sleep tight, you morons!”

The prep schoolboy who raped me in the ninth grade deserved

more than that rant from me.

Instead, I went on the pill.

7
 White Picket Fences

8
insignificant
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you
– Maya Angelou

she kneels on her bed to peer out the window at the lightning bugs
dancing little flickering points whisper promises of a future
she has sketched as a figure of herself as a grown-up because she will
outgrow the white cotton nightgown Omi stitched by hand, teaching
her patience & concentration she frowns as she tries to write
B-A-R-B-A-R-A & not just B-A-R-B-I-E in cursive
on the windowsill

she wanders to Lake Erie, answering the call to her Piscean nature
foreshadowing her future where she will calm her fears & mix blue
tears with green water

she walks herself down the aisle trailing academic degrees

like flower petals gathering strength from courage & dignity
from respecting herself enough to bestow her own name & crown
herself mother of her own child to love & cherish
enough to return kneeling at the window & whisper
B-A-R-B-A-R-A back to herself

9
 Lacunar Amnesia
my
side-
walk
mosaic
frag-
ments
litter
blue
tree
bark,
mel-
odies
&
pap-
rika
align-
ed pat-
tern
emer-
ges
leav-
ing
space
enoug
h
for
moss
to sprout
be-
tween

10
cracks
of what
I
chose
to
for-
get.

11
Code of Conduct, 1976
"Torture" within the meaning of the Convention (and 8 Code of Federal Regulations,
Section 208.18) is an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment and does not
extend to lesser forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment –
U.S. State Department

It was the bicentennial a word my eight-year-old

self tucked into my brain hot, sweaty bangs pushed
across my forehead Patty Brown & I paused our
task weaving red, white & blue crepe paper
through the spokes of our bicycles & taping little
American flags to the handlebars to beg for a
coffee filter each of semi-sweet morsels used for
the cookies her mother made. We cradled white
pleated cups holding just enough chocolate to melt
on our tongues under the grove of pine trees

I escaped after the boys released me from their

forts games of conquer & control practiced on my
body I was combat trained to zone
out & allow their curiosity to exploit my lost
innocence my father deprived me his desire to
arrange me much like Patty Brown & I arranged
my Barbie dolls in positions I knew first-

hand jobs taught with potty training & sippy cups

my two & three year old self seductive to my
thirty-three year old daddy’s ejaculations;
scalding precious flesh pure tarnished by his
venomous acid

12
Virtue, by definition

I just have so little tolerance for

self-serving intentions

her socks perfectly folded & bleached white

tucked into clean shoes. It’s not just sanctimony
I mind so much as smug pretentiousness that
walks shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk
littered with abandoned chalk hopscotch boxes
leaves no room for me.

I trail behind long narrow shadow & use my

pointer finger to dance between one pony tail
bouncing & the other. Back & forth nodding a
bit, too because that’s how she walks & she
knows she is always right. My right index
finger points back & forth, back & forth how
adults admonish without words.

a : having or exhibiting virtue — (see virtue) b : morally excellent :

righteous <a virtuous decision>. 3. : chaste. — vir·tu·ous·ly adverb ...
conformity of one's life & conduct to moral & ethical principles;
uprightness; rectitude. 3. chastity; virginity: to lose one's virtue…

assumes the idea that one has a

virtue with which to begin.

*Where does that leave me, never having the privilege of chastity & no
virtue to lose?

13
Mother’s Bounty

Like little buddhas sitting cross-legged on the linoleum kitchen floor

my little brother & I wait for the cups of water my mother bestows
as Eucharist from her eternal bounty of casual maternity. We
patiently lift our flower faces to receive her rays she, our sun, our
primovant, our Christ, my savior like a promise tucked inside the
pocket of my corduroy jumper embroidered with purple & white
flowers over the linen peter pan collared blouse my blonde bangs
hover in perfect symmetry over my brown eyes that seek salvation,
nectar, her attention floating in the sole ice cube bobbing in the
center of the cup of water I gratefully receive.

14
Summer, 1975
In and out of focus, time turns elastic -Trey Anastasio

melts deconstructing madness in

futile attempts at understanding
what is unfathomable the fire burns melts Barbie
dolls Matchbox cars wheels spinning
whereas it never penetrates thin useless
membrane hangs my virginity yellow
smoke stains white satin christening
gown symbolizes what exactly?
perfection erected in mythological picket fences scorched
no longer keep the neighborhood boys
from tunneling under the hem of my shorts hands, hot breathe,
flames destroyed illusions I did not understand my seven year old
thighs traced ball- point pen marks
cartography of its own kind
like a red, blinking light flashing on my forehead
my brown eyes blinking blinking wondering
what exactly I needed
to get my mother’s attention
who pays any mind
to a little girl losing her mind insignificant
lost in an abyss of madness trapped by
her daddy’s devices his Playboys
waterlogged in collapsed card- board boxes
no one thought to hide
two children inconsequential in the
equation between the alcoholic narcissism
of their marital rages we were lost our red
rose heads bowed
in morning

15
incest survivor

the worst part of being

an old whore by the
age of eight is how
jaded you feel when
you blow
out twelve candles

16
Temper Tantrum

My mother wields
a wooden spoon
she smashes more
on the counters
than across our heads

her rages last like

thunderstorms

we seek shelter until she

exhausts herself

of the rage for

the life

she unwittingly
chose at eighteen she
regrets at thirty.

The wooden spoon bounces

against
the floor as she drops it
to reach for the glass she
fills with wine to erase her
reality.

In the process, she

forgets her two children
huddled in the pantry between (the
bags of potatoes
& a dust pan & broom)

17
she doesn’t use.
Mrs. Murdock comes twice a week to
polish & clean so our mother can
focus instead on bitter
remorse.

18
plea

worms crawl through cotton

flowered panties turned inside out
in haste & maggots squirm
through my eye sockets gaping
empty skull of sprawled corpse of
my little girl self forced open &
mouth stuffed with salty hideous
crime that you refuse to see,
mommy

19
First Menses
We were talking-about the space between us all
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion -George
Harrison

no red tent, only a

single red rose cut
from the garden I
suck
the blood drop Kodack snapshot
my finger tip no longer feels
pain from the thorn numb under the
loss of feigned innocence index finger
no longer whips my shame rubber
band time lost before I can remember
before there was me
I did not even know how it
would look for two people
to be joined
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.

my imagination too young to fathom the

mushroom head & upside down eyebrows
collapse like a letter slips into an envelope

illusionary reality blended between Beatles

tunes I hum in my sleep as my dreams
protect my sanity because the hours I
concentrate reading is the source of power
I did not know welled inside my body garden

20
denial of present reality requires floating
possibilities that can fold in half & fold
again until flat enough to slip into his
sitar echoed by canned laughter to
escape scarlet memories

21
He says,

I wish you
could finally be free

I agree. I wish I could be

free. I work hard to find a
way. I wonder
if there will ever be a time. I want
my life. Finally.
there just is no eraser.
the universe inside my head

I consciously drown auditory

flashes in blasting guitar
crescendos Phish leads me
through as I run with my dog
through the neighborhood listening

secret, precious, pretty, daughter

drown in the bathtub

under water beneath
the dirt I’d rather hear

than the click of a Zippo & the trigger of a zipper

complicated layers of extemporaneous melodies

enough (measured to the drum of my breath) to
momentarily relieve
relentless agony upon which my life is based daddy’s little girl a gruesome
cosmic
fate I cannot deny in the face of self-

determination to become more

than my past.

22
Flashback: waterboarding

"torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of

law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or
suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon
another person within his custody or physical control – under U.S. Code
Classification 18. 2340

My four-year-old son requests just one drink of water, mommy

from his bunk bed as a stall tactic after the story has been told,
the stuffed animals arranged, the closet doors closed; everything
secured just so he can surrender to slumber.

I walk down the hallway to fulfill his request & flash –

My mother screaming & my father roaring & I call

from my bed just one drink of water, mommy. My
four year old logic conceiving peace stratagem;
interference to interrupt their fight.

She roars & my bedroom door floods light from the hallway.
Mommy standing with a plastic cup of water she throws at
me, water splashing my everything soaking wet before she
slams the door back into darkness as I sob.

I walk down the stairs to the kitchen to fill a cup half full (because
everyone knows kitchen water is better than bathroom water) &
I’m that kind of a mother who gently holds the cup, hands
trembling, for my son’s dimpled hand to grasp.

23
24
Telephone Static

25
Easter Poem

Thank you so much for

your anticipated phone
call, it is Easter & I
appreciate your guilt

26
Secret, 1972

Mr. Soyka always beckoned the neighborhood kids I

know you’ve got a secret. Tell me a secret, he’d tease.
I’d stand frozen thinking he must know.

27
bunker

Thin, blonde braids hang on either side of her narrow face

peeking cautiously, eyebrows drawn as her hands

busy arranging the Barbie dolls in the world she creates

within the closet inside her bedroom behind two

doors. Safe with her back against the wall, forever vigil she
can linger in her childhood universe a few moments longer

playing with dolls who are adults pretending she doesn’t know
what to do with the Ken & relieved there is only a seam

where she knows that’s not true. She does not know what
it means for Christopher to hide in the closet she is only
nine.

Instead, she merely does what pleases her most:

pairs Ken with
Skip leaves Barbie
alone

because this is the only reality she can

control inside her block house
hunkered down, if not below

28
central intelligence
Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders
Friedrich Nietzsche

the crystal doorknob makes less sense

than the skeleton key question I slide
into my dreams backwards

wondering how you could have

broken your arm & why I dreamed
of you with your eyes closed— my
own Eleanor Rigby

leaving me un-tethered precariously tossed

Barbie doll limbs vacant naked eyes
melting what was left after flames
destroyed rainbow-painted picket fences

traded for lost swirls of morality found

in vinegar-soured breath remarks

I learned to make scotch & water before

I could make toast

29
Decoding

Until I became a mother

I still believed

in Santa Claus,

you didn’t know

in the Tooth Fairy,

it wasn’t your fault

in the Easter Bunny,

there wasn’t anything you could do.

30
Conspiracy
A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject
to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed
for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy. 18
USC § 2340A

Frieda learned about her mommy

from a classmate at school who
had The Bell Jar & said the
truth, so matter-of-factly.

My mommy learned about me

from my diary & said, go
back to school the truth isn’t
a matter of fact.

31
Lawyer
There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

the truth does not exist

between the silver metal
spheres suspended in a
row to hit sequentially:
evidence of equal reaction.

the truth is more complex than

the plaque on my father’s desk
there are three sides of the
truth: yours, mine, and the
facts.

32
poor father pete
must have died burdened
with sin soaked in scotch
nicotine stained fingers
collar choking redemption
he could not ask Father for
forgiveness because he
never asked me

33
Collect Call
I accept the charges just to hear his voice punctuated by the
annoying woman’s voice announcing the obvious – the name
of the federal penitentiary one year of his life sentenced to
orange jumpsuits I’m not allowed to touch but for a moment
when I finally visit. Instead, I wrap the cord around my wrist
as we speak short sentences between interruptions of her
recorded voice & my three year old son’s requests for juice
& crackers.

the same dimple in their left cheeks, a genetic accident the

gift from his uncle. Matchbox cars on plastic orange tracks
my little brother, the ghost child of our family playing
contentedly in the corner of my childhood memories,
forgotten by Daddy too distracted in his obsession with me.

Defending his only son our father’s last case paltry retribution
before cancer ate his logic. I could not bear to sit in court & watch,
threatened by too many flashbacks of episodes behind my father’s
enormous desk or on the black leather sofa, while he ran a
campaign for local mayor & profited from his clients’
bankruptcies forfeited my own soul I protected at the cost of
sitting behind my brother’s chair.

My little brother’s life broken

not just by his temporary imprisonment,
another phone call — the one that made him howl like the wounded
animal he’s become, primitive in his pain
to hear the news his wife no longer waits
for him at home, her vigil too heavy for her to bear & her chaos
consumed her sanity in the misplaced moment she took her life.

34
My mother calls me & wails, She’s dead. She’s dead.
Before I can ask Who, who is dead?
the collect call from prison I accept
with no explanation to my mother I cut
off to connect to my little brother,
heartbroken sobs racking his large frame
vibrating through the line into my soul.
His long-distant voice beyond my horror & guilt
patiently explaining what arrangements to be made
that would find me seated next to my dying father after the funeral
her parents claimed their daughter back to the temple
an armed guard escorts my little brother wearing a borrowed suit
to bring his wife roses for the last time before
our mother packs their life into cardboard boxes
my brother will open after he serves his penance.

35
It’s over now,
my mother’s command telephones into my soul.
She’s called to tell me he’s dead, not a surprise
opportunity to repeat, it’s time to move on.
Even though I moved out twenty-five years
ago, her words transport me to my adolescent
static of self-destruction, she interrupts you will
be there for the memorial?

What’s over, exactly?

I refrain by severing the connection. The only
thing more satisfying would be the hum of a dial
tone. I miss rotary dials & long windy cords &
long-distance.

36
Flashback: brainwashing
Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies –
Dorothy Allison

My little boy & his cousin are dirty exhausted,

exhilaration exhaled their bodies limp in the back seat
as I drive them home from their first week of summer
camp, that joyous rite of passage we parents are
gifted with our children’s first steps of independence,
like their first steps when they were babies toddling
as if walking on a balloon like his daddy & I walked
with the first men on the moon in 1969.

Now, we are the parents & our babies

took their first steps ten years ago
while the twin towers collapsed &
the monsters in the closets took a
different form.

The highway stretches in front of me

as we safely journey back to our home
where I can retreat to my closet &
succumb to the memory.

The pizza joint that first night back from camp when
I was thirteen over pepperoni & handfuls of orange
stained napkins they carefully explained to me &
my little brother mommy & daddy would be
separating for awhile.

The next morning, my mother took me alone to poor father pete who
sat behind a desk, his white collar only a blur.

37
We know your secret. You can tell us.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

had only written one journal entry in my notebook.
did not know she, too had violated my privacy could not even name
it because I had only ever seen the word incest for the first time in
my entire life scrawled in creepy, crayon letters on the cover of a
Teen magazine.

Your mother found your diary when you were at camp.

She knows what your father has been doing to you.

Mortification exploded into implosion, shook the

earth I wished would swallow me whole. Shame
too inadequate a word to describe the humiliation
I felt staining my cheeks.
The only thing my mother asked,

Are you still a virgin? That’s all I want to know.

Yes, Mother, technically, yes, I am still a virgin.

38
Broken Geraniums

39
We Were Geraniums

like the school fundraiser flowers our moms used

to buy & plant in barrels to watch grow our
beautiful faces bloomed on sturdy strong stalks a
pungent odor we masked in high school rings of
cigarette smoke & pot, drowning our roots in beer,
sex, cheap vodka because I had already studied
Anne Sexton
& Christopher, Holden Caulfield we followed
traipsing through the corn fields that lined our
suburban neighborhoods, disturbing the swings
at the playground at night climbing the fence to
skinny dip although we all belonged to the same
country club where we stole the bottom half of
our parents’ gin & tonics with shriveled up
limes to learn how to drink.

We were geraniums we gave no thought to why,

only how & wanted to plough our way
voraciously, scream, drink fight, curse, drive,
fuck, roar before first bell Chemistry & during
study hall, passing notes handwritten in smeared
ink between the bathroom stalls that reeked of
hairspray & cigarettes like the smoke seeped from
under the crack of the teacher’s lounge mixed
with coffee, chalk, cafeteria lunches we would
ditch to drive around Mill Creek Park because
everything was always
more dramatic than seventh bell English I didn’t skip
so I could see Eric B— who was seated four rows up
because I was in love.

40
We were our mother’s fundraiser geraniums from
the genus Pelargonium, we were Stoksbills
posing as the real thing a misnomer explanation
for why the privilege of wealth was the cost to
our souls our handwritten notes never scrawled
incest or gay or rape or abortion; suicide, AIDS,
death
Christopher’s mother neglected his broken stalk &
deadheaded browned blooms tossed into the compost
of the spicy smell of hardy geraniums & unwanted fingers
that insinuate around the stalk, snapping off the bloom.

41
His name was Skip, not unlikely

to fall in love with his madras shorts & upturned polo when I wore
my army coat over my pearls because I was the rebel against

his preppy nature drinking champagne from the bottle.

He did not smoke.

I flirted with his sophistication because I summered on

a lake & danced barefoot on the beach-

perhaps my audacity warranted his refusal

to stop when I demanded. Naïve to believe in my own death wish

he would stop because it hurts. The one thing I still had

he took. The strand of pearls did not satisfy in a

dramatic tumble; they were individually knotted. I
only lost
one.

42
Bandaged & Fallen
l'eila min kol bir'khata v'shirata
(beyond any blessing & song)

I still feel regret letting you, my brother’s sweet Raggedy Anne wife
in patchwork dresses fall under the debris you let litter your life,
losing your own son to his father & losing your new husband to
prison for a year you could not endure the pain you patched
morphine band-aids onto your tattooed body so mangled by plastic
surgeons your Orthodox father sat shiva when you turned to Jesus
in a strange conversion, gold cross dangling between plastic breasts
inside my mother’s yellowed wedding gown she unearthed for the
occasion marked in a few Polaroid snapshots omitted from the
photograph display in the temple your sister glued
& my brother cried jagged sobs into the red roses
he brought for your funeral the day after your
father blanketed the mirrors.

43
Christopher

We were three when we first

met in line alphabetically ordered
by nuns who still wore habits.
Your first words to me, I have a horse.
A real horse? I just had to know your
curly hair & big toothless smile.
I had never even seen a real horse.
It was the first time we were shushed.

Our conversation lasted fifteen years during

class & over assemblies; in cafeteria lines & on
the phone calls that would last all night
discussing everything except what neither of us
would say.

Instead, we conspired elaborate diversions of

mischief against the villains of our parents.

Undeclared best friends an

unlikely duo.

I never questioned why you played hopscotch on the

playground & I defended you to the stupid boys who
jeered. You never asked why I professed to hate my
parents when I jumped into your car with a stolen
bottle of scotch. You dared me to kiss him. I dared
you.

I didn’t ask why you looked so frail at the fifteenth class

reunion. I was too happy whispering continuing our
conversation about

44
everything except what neither of us would say. I have a
photograph of you holding the phone to your ear in my
hotel room, my last image of you alive.

I wish I called you.

45
Photograph of my father
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!/The world forgetting, by the world
forgot. / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!/Each prayer accepted, and
each wish resigned –Alexander Pope

I hesitate to hang the picture framed in black. I remove the nail from the
wall & store the image away. I can live with a tiny hole better than a
continuation of lies through yet another generation. It ends with me & will
not be veiled in a thin disguise of revisionist history because it’s my story
to not tell & my reality to no longer live. Your image fades because there
is no impression beyond a genetic fraction. There are no sentimental
stories. The silver is gone. I do not keep albums of photographs except of
my son. What I do keep are the books inscribed in faded ball-point ink &
carefully dated August 29, 1935. One recipe card written by the
mythological Aunt Minnie. The coins were discovered & pirated. The tea
service gone. Heavy silver haunted by my ghosts fade with the wisps of
smoke from the sage I burn in response. I do not need charms & relics
from a past that deserves to be forgotten.

46
Holes
for my son, Carter

I am sorry your
ancestry is a
checker board of
omissions

It is my job to
protect you

There are only so

many truths I’m
willing to share
& I will not lie

I will tell you

the stories I’ve
worked hard to
forget but first

you’ll need to
be old
enough
to ask

47
War Memorial, 2011
I plant white impatiens in a
galvanized steel tub under the
ancient Siberian elm. I am left
to breathe their names in
prayers because it would have
been me among them. I
courted tragedy convinced of
my own early death. I don’t
know what to do

with myself now that I am of a certain age &

have abandoned Woolf & her rocks & Sexton &
her fabulous fur, vodka & her mother’s car. I
have learned gas ovens too sophisticated to leak
anyway, my son too young to contain behind
doors stuffed with towels & I no longer equate
Assia’s murder of Shura to my own mother’s
treatment of me.

I am alive & so is she.

Gardening my mother’s gift of atonement I use

as ritual they will know as remembrance.

Christopher reckless horseman; June’s moon smile too big for this world.
Destiny hanged. Anthony & Katherine’s son crashed. Bones suffered
injustice of the worst form; Gwynni accidental negligence. Almira’s
mother bludgeoned to death; Mark’s heart exploded. Kelly a statistic;
Tommy & Kurt both by their own despair. The cafeteria lady pushed
down the basement stairs. Jay sacrificed by his own gun.

Am I forgetting anyone?

48
Young lives cannot be contained & overflow
causing riots of blooms weeding out, leaving
casualties, deadheaded flowers have justification I
struggle to reason as I turn the black plastic
container upside down to shake loose the flower,
fingers separating the roots place in dark, rich earth I
no longer yearn to succumb nor do I accept as my
immediate fate because experience has shown me
otherwise.

49
white

antique lace christening gown ashes from the fire

picket fence around brick patio ice cubes melting in vodka

my skin daddy’s venomous acid

high school graduation dress one lost pearl of innocence

gossamer wedding veil crushed forget-me-nots

Christopher cantering on zero leukocyte count

an Arabian

new diamond promise my husband under hospital sheets

fresh clean diapers cotton balls I use to soak the blood

mother’s dress my sister-in-law blanket we used to shroud the mirrors

wore

epsom salts I immerse page I infuse with black ink

50
Survival Guide

Step 1:
Create your own ritual.

Weave ribbons through the branches

& hang bells & shells to dance in the breeze.
Lean empty milk bottles against the trunk; fill
them with happy faces of daisies. Place a table
under the shade of the majestic elm to write
verse & communicate with god & the birds.
Entice the muse with frivolous adornments.
Hope & listen & wonder & scribble &
sometimes erase as well.

Step 2:
Live well. The cliché is true. It is the best revenge.

51
Take heart, kid
the best part of
surviving child abuse –
the rest of your life will
look great

52
Snapshots

53
 Monday Morning
the aftermath
I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream;
that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight
razor... and surviving. -Apocalypse Now

I.
My senses, jagged edges irritated as the artificial light
burns my eyes, expands into pulsing smeared circles that
throb with more energy than I can contain or absorb, or
even process as separate from my own experience.

What mostly matters my

misplaced sense of self within
the microcosmic universe
I inhabit can only become proportionate within my
own ego or within the work I create, nowhere else.

II.
Nurturing is not original; even a mother can be replaced.

Weary & fatigued, I dream of dirt dull

brown stripped bare to plant evergreens
& pines with patience.

For a flash, I experience a false sense I accept as truth that existence is

merely its own result & there is no other meaning. To be has never been
enough until that moment. But then, the light morphs & the shadows
distort, & reality clicks back into place with its usual irritation.

I sit & learn to be still.

54
Even when the temperature abruptly changes, its drama not
enough to absorb my energy & concentration.
I have more focus for a rock.
& I love the trees & remind myself to hypnotize my senses within
the green kaleidoscopic canopy of divine creation & the truth of
significance will be revealed.

Why has it taken me so many years?

Even if I produce, create, process, design, maintain, excrete, digest,

ingest, eject, erupt, formulate, ruminate, execute, revise, destroy, implode,
synthesize & analyze; I will still die.

III.

It’s not the dying I mind so much as what it is I

am supposed to be doing until then & what is
important & what is irrelevant & what lessons
are to be absorbed & what mistakes are to be
forgotten. I hope to remember my dreams,
wonder if they are tunnels into new dimensions
or merely an extension of what
I already know rearranged in an original way to entertain my
mind while my body rests.

I would like to believe in the collective energy

of the universe that breathes & sighs in births &
deaths. I would not have to question my
purpose & function, nor ponder if function is
even the point to begin with. ( I know that
sentence ends in a preposition. It is my
language to mangle & to contemplate its
arrangement because although this poem exists
outside of me, it comes from me, was

55
 conceived within me, expressing isolated,
disjointed thoughts questioning ideology
contradicted by the truth in the trees.

IV.

The rings of the tree & the rocks around its trunk
evidence of longevity & sustainability, not necessarily
any indication of anything other than its own function.
My truth is not found in the beloved tree. Meditation &
contemplation of the tree’s existence only relevant to
my wonder. There is no malice nor bitterness. I am not
morose.

I do not need evidence of god.

The elasticity of time & the redundancy of human

response both contradict & reinforce everything I
know about life.

I have not travelled enough to worry that there

isn’t much I have yet to see & I’m not melancholy
about misspent youth. I’ve wasted enough days to
launch trips into dreams flashing through
antiquated esoteric experiences.

& then I went to school.

It is only because I am restless that my curiosity

dominates any self-consciousness,
which unintentionally delights in adventures of love
transformed into written text woven in roses &
tarnished silver tea spoons hanging under crystal
chandeliers that chime when the wind moves

56
through the tree branches to blow through the foyer
of my dreams.

57
black ink on white parchment

withered gray vines languish over the edges of the razed, brown
dirt a reminder of the life that pervasively burned the wick of the
candle melted half onto itself by the sun’s rays that beat green
things into yellowed scraps of paper tattooed in black ink because I
embrace that singular proclivity for the pleasure of heavy text
written on luxurious parchment

white rocks placed by happenstance at the water’s edge reveal their

grace caught in glimpses under the withered gray vines I am
responsible to remove with careful regard for the ivy poison to my
skin I remind myself rejuvenates every seven years (it has been four
times that) since he touched the cells I have long since shed

58
Military Merit Medal
I have more energy for a rock & I do so love rocks, although I have
never been as much a mountain girl as an ocean girl.

My Piscean ancestry surrounds my life with lakes, creeks, oceans

every memory washing up on shore like the shells we collect to seek
perfect sand dollars, sea glass, blue stones I place in reverence

on my kitchen windowsill altar anchored by the amethyst geode

harvested from a kind soul named Nick I met on my journey. I still
have his token, but not

his forwarding address like so many friends I have met: the

wandering hippie at the drum circle whose gentle face opened to
explain why apple cider vinegar was better than deodorant & to
describe his lucid dream

practices found in The Tibetan Book of the Dead

I paid overdue library fines to study the bardos of existence looking for
an explanation for a purpose. Existentialism no longer suits

me because I understand my reality as a fragile balance between

gritty self-determination & the fantasy of fate, love at first sight,

a promise of ever after, the zipless fuck, all of the clichés a
feminist woman

is taught to ignore like an anvil descended upon my

head in a thousand yellow daisies delivered to my
classroom on leap year, a quixotic gesture bestowed
upon my fortieth birthday shared with my raggedy
gaggle of students peeking between vases stacked
on their desks, their

59
flower faces intrinsic gift of your generosity in
spite of middle-aged cynicism.

This innocent gesture of whimsy grounds me deeper to the diamond I

wear encased in platinum around my wedding finger I worship

as devoutly as the medicine wheel I dream to be planted

in the backyard by our beloved pond so we may walk
its path together.

60
last night I dreamed my mother died

gray shadows whisper regret & loss as

familiar as the grief I suck deeply into my
center. She is already gone. Her transcendence

into death will be merely the cliché passing – a

phrase I irrationally hate so much. Although it
is less cliché than accurate, it sounds trite.

The word dead clips with clarity & satisfies my ears.

This sense of irreverence I ironically inherited

from her even though she is now lost in
saccharine sentimentality, she used to

bark sarcasm & growl howling laughter clinking

subtext between ice cubes

enticing the pun in curls of smoke smoldering

from cigarettes crushed in mushroom painted
ceramic ashtrays. I yearn

for the maternal affection she shrugged off like a cashmere sweater,
moth eaten & worn too thin to be of any

substance when I leaned in from her peripheral vision to

touch the sweat dews formed on the outside of her glass.

61
If I could boomerang the truth

it would circle the moon & pierce the sun

before returning to me tasting like burned
toast. It matters. Whether the word travels to
the Great Barrier Reef or settles at the bottom
of a shot glass, it belongs to me. It is mine.
I study snapshots from my childhood & collect
skeleton keys looking for clues that no longer
exist. The truth isn’t important now, of course.
It never is. Never was, actually. Searching
for a word, my mind wanders sifting
through eviscerated lines of poetry as the
sunlight slants & the shadows recede the
truth clicks back into place.
I lock the door behind me.

62
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
As defined by the American Psychological Association: PTSD, or
posttraumatic stress disorder, is an anxiety problem that develops in
some people after extremely traumatic events, such as combat, crime,
an accident or natural disaster.

Shivers run
down my
spine
telling me
I am not
alone

when I want
to be
dead so I

can finally escape the memories flashes

horror pain shame that haunt my every
moment woven
into the
very
fiber
of my being.

No memory
exists in a
vacuum that
can never
clean the
sperm-
splattered
fatigues my

63
 senses
beyond
understanding what
is
reality.

Nothing was a
dream.

Mommy
X’s with
her
index
finger
through
the air
into my
brain
white-
washing
what
fades
into
dark.

Shame stains red.

There was no
time
before.
no memory

before. no
innocence

64
before. no
before.

65
 Flashback: double-speaking

You offer me a snapshot & Grandma’s turquoise flower ring & I

gather gold in return even though what you gave me less than a gift,
more than just a faded picture; a vivid flash of hope that I was loved.
I accept your apology & place it on my windowsill, but I do not
forgive you.

I look at you laughing into my mouth open in an infant kiss,

the ghosts of you & me found in me & my own baby those
sweet infant universe days lasted forever & passed by in a
flash.I was one year old & that is enough — that one moment
to remind me of loss & grief too deep. I do not forgive you.

Instead, let me pray:

chant to the violet flame (ohm) aspire to heavenly realms

(alone)
ascend to the fifth dimension (float to the ceiling)
cleanse negativity (skin cells shed) flame from the heart of god
(are you there?) step into my own divinity (heal me, I
plead)
within I am presence (survivor)
allowing god within me (forgives victim)
transmute energy (poems) into the infinite (I
remember) perfection of god (baby skin) purge from
myself (good-bye)
bathe in transformational (tear up the picture) healing, cleansing,
empowerment (voice)

Amen

66
 Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement to the editors of the journals in which the

following poems first appeared:

“incest survivor”: Bigger Than They Appear Accents Publishing 2011

“Blue Stones”: Single Hound Journal 2011

“If I could boomerang the truth”: The Rusty Nail 2012

“Code of Conduct, 1976”: Red River Review 2012

“Lacunar Amnesia,” “Mother’s Bounty,” “Summer, 1975,” “We Were

Geraniums,” “His name was Skip, not unlikely”: Evening Street Review 2013

Heart-felt gratitude to Katerina Stoykova-Klemer; Nickole Brown; Sue

William Silverman; Eric Sutherland and the Holler Poet Series; Jay
McCoy for artistic brilliance and wisdom; Joshua Saxton, the only
photographer who ever captures me; the support of the Kentucky
Foundation for Women and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and
Learning; the wisdom and care of Dr. Leslie Evelo; the encouragement of
my sister friends Cindi Tigges, Denise Auciello, Chris Davis, Ivy
Thompson and Julie Silverman; all my love and gratitude to my husband,
Kevin Neumann, without whom none of this would be possible and to my
son, Carter Neumann, the best part of my life.

67
B. Elizabeth Beck is a writer, artist and teacher who
lives with her family on a pond in Lexington,
Kentucky. She achieved her bachelor of art in English
Literature from the University of Cincinnati and her
Master of Education from Xavier University.
Elizabeth taught in the public schools for over ten
years. She won the Claus Nobel Teacher of
Distinction Award as well as Teacher of the Year.
She is the founder of the Teen Howl Poetry Series in
Lexington, Kentucky. Interiors is her first chapbook
of poems by Finishing Line press. Her work can also
be found in various anthologies and journals, including an essay in Harvard
Education Press’s The American Public School Teacher. She is the
recipient of the 2012 Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment
Grant. insignificant is her first full-length collection of poems. She writes
a blog “Living with Memories,” a collection of over four hundred essays
discussing the topic of PTSD as an on-going endeavor to champion against
childhood sexual abuse and support survivors everywhere.
Unflinching could be one way to describe this debut collection. Raw could be
another, as these unfiltered poems are thick with the pulp of anger and cast a
narrative that stings. There is a mess that an uncle and a father and fort-building,
prep-school boys could make of a girl's body, but after, there is also the truth and
what it can wield. Here, you will not find perfect poems, no, but you will find a
perfect kind of courage, a bravery that quite unpredictably signs off with something
any survivor would do well to learn: “Live well. The cliché is true. It is the best
revenge." –Nickole Brown, author of “Sister”

In her inaugural full-length collection, Elizabeth Beck proves herself an earnest and
courageous new voice. insignificant kaleidoscopes through a spectrum of emotion
rooted in agonizing depths of cloistered pain. Reflective, instructive, and intimate,
these poems lament, luxuriate, and sometimes they just let loose and howl. Beck
unflinchingly empties every pocket and drawer, cracks up every floorboard,
committed to not only exploring but living alongside the specters of her past. –
Bianca Spriggs, Affrilachian Poet; author of Kaffir Lily

In insignificant, Elizabeth Beck provides compelling witness to the violence–and

its tragic after-effects–that too many girls suffer, without the ability to give it this
kind of important voice. In stunning imagery, Beck sheds light on what can only be
called crimes against humanity. –Sue William Silverman, author of Because I
Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You

Evening Street Press

Sacramento, CA