Four Poems by Ann Kammerer

Red Coat

The night I went to find her
she was wearing the red coat,
the one she got
at Burlington Coat Factory
for her 40th class reunion.

“I always wanted a red coat,”
Mom had said.
“They’re so youthful.”

She wore it proudly,
tossing it over pilled sweaters
and filthy sweatpants,
cinching the belt
to accent a waistline
starved by gin
and Percocet.

Now, under streetlamp,
she was vibrant,
the coat ever dazzling.
Seated on a frayed blanket,
wedged between wizened men,
Mom broke through the clutter
of black bags and bottles,
her coat a billboard
amidst cardboard signs.

“Time to go Mom.”
I nudged her peeling flats
and lifted her face
from a man’s nubby shoulder.
Her eyes quivered,
her irises soft pink.

“They need cigarettes.”
She groaned as I pulled her up,
her body a collapse
of boney arms and legs.
“Give them some.”

“I quit,” I said.

She swatted me
with limp paper hands.

“You would,
Wouldn’t you?”

Lowering her into the car,
I drove away,
passing weedy lots,
a Rite-Aid,
then a McDonald’s,
two blocks from a burned-out house.

“I always loved Chicken McNuggets,”
she mumbled,
the glow from the Golden Arches
striping her coat.
“You know I wouldn’t be like this
if your dad had just got me
what I wanted.”

*

Pancakes

Mom was propped up
with pillows
the last day I visited
the hospital.

She was leaning,
her balding head
touching the bed rail.
One leg was covered
with bleached white sheets,
the other bony and extended
with a sock hanging
from the toe.
Clutching a rosary
in her bent lumpy hand,
she stared at the TV,
her mouth gaping
over her brown stubby teeth.

“Put your toys down,” Mom said.
“Get to the table now.”

I set my purse
on the floor
and laid my coat
across the back
of a red vinyl chair.
Stepping to her bedside,
I pulled the sock back
around her crusted heel,
and smoothed the sheet
over her cold, grey legs.
I sat down and slipped off
my work shoes,
the smell of hospital food
from a hallway cart
seeping into her room.

“We’re almost ready
for dinner,” Mom said.
“The frying pan.
It should be
nice and hot.”

Mom dropped her rosary.
She centered her head
on her brittle neck,
her eyes rolling
behind half-closed lids.
Lifting one arm in a semi-circle,
she rotated the other in mid-air,
thin folds of transparent skin
dangling from her underarm.

“We’re having pancakes tonight.”
Her swollen tongue clacked,
elastic bands of spit
forming on the sides
of her mouth.
“Just like every Monday.”

Mom blended batter,
her withered fist spiraling.

“Come on,” she said.
“Set the table now.
We’re almost ready.”

The more she stirred,
the more her hospital gown
slid from one shoulder,
revealing a purple hole
near her breastbone
where nurses dribbled medicine
through plastic tubes.

“Come on,” she said.
“Be a good girl and help.”

I reached over the bed rail,
touching her bony arm.

“Mom.
How’s it going?”

Her arms collapsed
on her distended belly.

“Is that you?”
Her voice warbled
as her cheek pulsed.

“Yes. It’s me Mom.”

Mom looked past me
with glassy yellowed eyes.

“Did you come for dinner?”
Her breath pushed her words
through papery lips.

“Yes,” I said.
You were making pancakes,
weren’t you?”

Mom blinked.
Her head tilted
as if she heard something
faint and far away.

“You like pancakes,
don’t you?”

I stroked a wisp of hair
on her temple.

“Yes.
I love pancakes.”

Mom’s mouth curved,
breaking the stillness
of her face.
Her eyes shuttered
and she began to shake,
her arms fluttering
as her legs
made the sheets
move like ghosts.

*

Candy Counter

I always thought
I’d go to college,
but when the time came,
I didn’t.

After high school,
my only ambitions
were to get an apartment
and do something aside
from selling hotdogs
at a mall kiosk.
Teachers said
I was good at math
and science
and even writing.
Mr. Bonfiglio said
my future was bright.
I didn’t see that,
and figured he was just
trying to get me
to stay after school,
go out to some park,
drink wine,
and run his hands
all over me
like he had
with my friend Mary.

Mom wasn’t big
on jobs or college
and wasn’t much help.
She had gone straight
from high school
to work the candy counter
at a department store.
Dad had worked there, too,
selling appliances.
They double-dated for a while
with a guy from automotive
and a girl from lingerie.
Shortly after they married,
Dad made her quit,
saying no wife of his
was going to sell sweet things
for a living.

“Just work a while,” Mom told me.
“Maybe you’ll be lucky
and meet Mr. Wonderful.
You could quit then,
have a kid.”

I told Mom
that wasn’t my plan,
that I wanted to do more,
that people said
I was smart.

“I’m thinking about
getting a better job,” I said.
“You know, maybe down
at the dry cleaners,
make a little more money,
see if they’ll teach me
how to tailor,
or something like that.”

Mom poured a drink
and sat down
at the kitchen table.
She lit a cigarette
and called me smarty-pants.
Crossing her legs,
she smoothed her bare calf,
kicking off one shoe
to rub her foot.

“Better watch your fanny
if you do that,” Mom said.
“I hear that Rod guy
who runs the place
gets pretty friendly
with counter girls.
Customers, too.”

I took one of her Viceroys
and slumped on the couch
to watch reruns of “Medical Center.”
Chad Everett filled the screen,
the scene cutting
between him and a blonde nurse,
his eyes technicolor blue,
his bangs gelled
in a perfect crescent,
his lean body draped
in a white doctor coat.

“Well look at him.”
Mom drew on her cigarette,
her lipstick ringing the filter.
She recrossed her legs
and ran her fingertips
over her other calf.
“He can take my pulse any day.”

*

Fugue

A cloud of swearing
seeped into my room
a few hours after
I went to bed.
Dad had missed dinner,
never calling,
coming home late,
making Mom mad,
both of them drunk,
Dad throwing things
and punching walls,
making her yell
and break things, too.

Their shouts rose
in vicious rhapsody,
fading in somber fugue.
Falling asleep,
I woke to the lapping
of curtains on the sill,
a slice of pink sun
spilling on the sheets.

The morning was still,
the living room
strewn with bottles
and upended chairs.
The TV was on,
Phil Donahue
caressing a mic,
immersed in a sea
of middle-aged women
in double knits
and stretch floral shirts,
their necklines bridled
with ascots.

I stood and watched,
drinking warm Coke
and eating cereal from the box.
The sink was jammed
with crusted-over plates,
so I loaded the dishwasher
then got ready
for my 10 o’clock shift
at the dry cleaners.

Walking to work,
I tried not to think
about where Dad went
most nights,
or why Mom didn’t
call her friend Ruth Ann
like she used to.
She was happier then,
or maybe I was littler,
not understanding their exchanges
over Jim Beam and cigarettes,
bemoaning how men
could slip around
and they couldn’t,
that it just wasn’t fair
that they caught a raw deal.

“Men,” Mom would say.
“They’re either obsessed
or they’re womanizers.”

She took a drink
and slammed her glass.

“Well how about this?”
Ruth Ann slapped the table.
“You could just shorten it,
say ‘All men are obsessed.’
That ‘bout says it.”

They’d laugh and smirk
and clink their glasses.
I’d laugh, too,
jumping and twirling,
half-repeating their words,
mom grabbing my ponytail,
telling me to go play.

“Quit listening,” she’d say.
“Go away. Be a good girl.”

When I got to the cleaners,
my boss Rod
was at the front counter,
leaning close and talking
to an olive-skinned woman
in a filigreed dress.
His mom Ruby
was there, too,
finishing up orders,
getting ready to go
for the day.

“Good morning.”
Rod stood up straight.
So did the woman.
Ruby peered over her glasses
as she ran a tape
on the calculator.

“This is Mrs. Carras.”
Rod gazed at Mrs. Carras
but talked to me.
“She’s, well, one of our regulars.”

Mrs. Carras held out
her slim hand,
her rings sparkling
with fluorescent light.

“Are you Rod’s new girl?”
Her sleek red lips broke a smile.
“You’re Millie and Frank’s
daughter, right?”

I said yes.
She squeezed my forearm,
her touch silky,
her eyes traveling
up the center of my blouse,
descending to the hemline
of my skirt.

“You’re a perfect doll.”
Her fingertips lingered
as she pulled her hand away.
“I’m sure we’ll talk more
someday.”

*

Ann Kammerer lives in Oak Park, Illinois, having relocated from her home state of Michigan with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared in Fictive Dream, ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry, Open Arts Forum, Bright Flash Literary Review, Thoughtful Dog, The Ekphrastic Review, and anthologies by Crow Woods Publishing and Querencia Press. She has received top honors and made the short list in several writing contests. Her chapbook collections of narrative poetry include “Yesterday’s Playlist” (Bottlecap Press 2023), “Beaut” (forthcoming 2024 from Kelsay Books), and “Friends Once There (forthcoming 2024 from Impspired).