Pushcart Poems

“Sail On” by Linda Ferguson, published in The Poeming Pigeon: A Journal of Poetry & Art (#14), released in October 2024, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Please enjoy the poem, and feel free to leave a comment.

Sail On

by Linda Ferguson

It’s not a matter of sequins and chiffon.
Of ruffles. Of petticoats.
Or even pink—

although I do love that—

the sandy pink of a kitten’s tongue
the rustling pink of coneflowers baked in the late-August sun
the creamy pink of birthday icing and its tender,
curling peaks—

It was Mom who balked at the sight of me, her boy—
she was the one who squirmed
who screwed on a stiff smile
whose taut, rusted tendons creaked
as she bent to press her ear to my bedroom door—

What did she expect to hear?
I was cross-legged on the floor, clipping pictures from her magazines
to make my walls bloom with yellow-tongued nasturtiums,
with sunflowers, their open hearts abuzz,
with pots of red salvia I wanted to drape
over my shoulders like a feather boa.
I imagined myself enveloped by blossoms,
some with the audacious ruffles of cancan girls,
others as delicate as the fingertips of a glass ballerina
pirouetting on the pedestal of a music box—

That was it—is it!—a craving for options!

Once I slipped into my mother’s room
and tried on her swimsuit—

the stretch of a palm-sized orchid print, the snap of elastic straps,
the pale flesh-toned cups sewn into the lining of the chest—
my boy trunks had none of this—
maybe a stripe, a drawstring, a zippered pocket for a locker key—
just shorts, really—for soccer, T-ball and play combat.

I am—go ahead and say what you think—
aberrant
unnatural
anomalous
strange
sick—

I don’t understand what it’s like to be any other way,
to want to be any other way,
to never wonder how it feels to hold the carved handle of a parasol
to never sense its fringe swaying overhead
or to dab a drop of lavender scent behind my left ear
or vanilla
or rose
or hyacinth—

What is ‘manly’? Wood spice?
What’s that?
And what’s it like to smell of nothing else?
Maybe it’s like being in a box,
a narrow, pine box
nailed shut,
deaf and blind as dirt.

Not for me, aberrant, gloriously sick, sick me:
I’ve twirled through lockstepping crowds on their way to work
I’ve floated down grocery store aisles in a snowy tutu
I’ve wound two strings of my grandmother’s pearls around my Adam’s apple
I’ve trilled my countertenor over strip malls and clover fields
and decked myself in blue and silver sequins to become a splendid sea creature
unfurling my pliant limbs—

Now voyager, I then say to myself,
sail on, swim on
through rip tides and lightning and jellyfish stings,
through the inky secrets of the deep
beneath the glowing moon that blooms in shades of white
and gold and tangerine and—yes!—pink.

from The Poeming Pigeon: A Journal of Poetry & Art (#14)
nominated for The Pushcart Prize by Shawn Aveningo Sanders, editor/publisher