Red Things
Right before
Mom left Dad
and moved out-of-town,
she started buying
all sorts
of red things,
things like
red shoes,
red earrings,
red shirts,
red dresses,
and a single-breasted
red pea coat
with black buttons
trimmed with
zirconia.
Dad asked why
she was getting
so dolled up,
why she was
wearing clothes
meant for
high school girls
like me.
“Never mind,” he said.
“I know why.
You’re catting about.
Aren’t you?”
Mom ignored him.
She fluffed her hair
in the hallway mirror
and put on red lipstick,
color-keyed
with her dress.
Elevated in heels,
she clicked past him
as he watched TV
and drank.
“Answer me.”
Dad grabbed her.
She swatted him
and pulled away.
“Don’t touch me,” she said.
“You know I can’t
stand it.”
They argued.
Dad stomped
to the kitchen
to get more beer.
Mom slipped on
her red coat
and went out,
her bright form a blur
as she passed by
the front window.
“Get back here.”
Dad shouted through
the open door.
The cold air blew in.
Mom revved
her Maverick
and backed
from the drive,
the headlights
glaring in Dad’s face,
making him squint.
“Goddamn it,” he said.
“I’ll find you.”
Dad yanked a sport coat
from the closet
and pulled it over
his untucked oxford.
He stumbled outside
in his rumpled pants,
one foot falling heavy,
the other dragging,
a felt cap set crooked
over his thinning hair.
After they left
and the house
grew quiet,
my little sister Janie
came out
to the living room.
She asked
where Mom was,
but didn’t ask
about Dad.
I told her
they went somewhere,
probably down
to Armando’s
or maybe over
to Monty’s.
“We should probably
go to bed,” I said.
“Before they get back.”
Janie sat down.
She covered her lap
with a dirty afghan
that Mom had knit
with red and white
acrylic yarn.
“I want to watch
The Waltons,” she said.
“We always do.
Me and Mom.
On Thursdays.”
I said OK,
we could do that.
Kneeling,
I flipped through
the channels,
landing on
the opening credits,
Janie telling me
to stop.
“There, there.”
Leaning forward,
Janie hummed
the theme song,
clapping out the waltz
of Appalachian rhythm,
the tiny screen filling
with a gabled house,
then John Boy
in a second-floor
window,
his father pulling up
in a flat-bed truck,
his mother
standing serenely
on the porch,
as a cluster of children
in overalls and gingham
bounded barefoot
across grass and pebbles,
a fawn-colored hound
not far behind.
*
Ann Kammerer lives in the Chicago area, and is a native of Michigan. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Fictive Dream, ONE ART, Open Arts Forum, Bright Flash Literary Review, Chiron Review, BlazeVOX, The Broken Spine, and elsewhere, and in anthologies by Workers Write!, Querencia Press, and Crow Woods Publishing. Her chapbook collections of narrative poetry include Yesterday’s Playlist (Bottlecap Press, 2023), Beaut (Kelsay Books, 2024), Friends Once There (Impspired, 2024), Someone Else (Bottlecap Press, 2024), and At the Cleaners (Bottlecap Press, 2025). You can find her here: annkammerer.com
This poem reminds me a friend (I’m sure there were more than one) who used to watch the Donna Reed show for the same reason. I like how the poem moved toward the ending, with the suggestion beforehand that the parents might meet up somewhere and things would still be safe — but maybe not.