F is for . . . .

fennel
Alan Bern
 
You didn’t believe me when I said that “I was bored . . . in my childhood.” “Fiddle-faddle,” you stomped a foot, “no way!” I explained: “When I was seven, I’d wait in front of my house for my best friend Jim to let me know when he’d be coming down so we could play with toy soldiers. Jim and I called it playing with men. Awfully 1950s, no? Jim mostly didn’t let me know when he was coming down since he was always so slow doing his chores. Like folding his clean clothes and putting them away. Well-organized dresser drawers. Jim’s mother required them. Even back then I thought, “Good luck to her.” It was so dry in the hellstrip dirt out in front of our house where the fennel grew wild. It wasn’t that hot, but it never rained in the summertime at all. Didn’t the fennel need water to grow? Maybe not much. Then I told you about the host plant fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) where swallowtail butterflies come to lay their eggs and swallowtail caterpillars feed. Then you wanted to kiss; and you knew I did, too. Lace in my fingers, and into my palms — the scent.


feathers
Alan Peat

Whenever I go for a walk, I can’t resist picking up feathers. They seem too beautiful to be tramped into the dirt, so I fill my pockets with them. I’ve been at it for so long now that distinguishing their origin is usually a relatively simple matter. I mainly find crow and pigeon and magpie feathers but occasionally something catches me off guard. A bright green feather in Kew Gardens foiled me.Turns out that escaped parakeets have bred there for ages: problem solved! One day my pockets were so full of feathers that I stuck one into a knitted monkey I owned. Goodness knows why I had a knitted monkey! Goodness knows why I stuck a feather into him! But then I stuck in another. And another. And now this monkey, who I call “Feathers” (of course) sits on my dashboard, a feathery porcupine, all hint of his simian origins hidden. My pockets are still filling up with feathers. So, dear reader, if you happen to have a knitted monkey lying around, unwanted and unloved, please do feel free to contact me. I have a good home for him by the steering wheel.


family
Ann Carter

family is baggage is wind is complex fortune is a backwards step is happiness is confusion is dull and delightful is the answer is the question is salt air is found objects is soft steps and jumping jacks is long deep breaths is hiccups is misfortune is a hot cup of tea is the bottom of the compost bin is a tickle instead of a tear is a favorite pet is the pet’s untimely death is a favorite cousin is sunburn and windburn and what it feels like when the wind stops is green grass and fresh snowfall is having your hair pulled is having your hair brushed is a knot that can’t be undone is a cat sitting on your lap and a dog chasing its tail is long conversations and short hellos and whispers and a broken dish and the dish glued back together is a ringing telephone is a three point shot is a pansy in bloom in February is no holes in your socks and freshly made bread and not being interrupted and forgiveness.


fired
Barrie Levine

After freshman year in college, I landed a summer job at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. I learned how to make malts, sodas, sundaes, and banana splits. One of my regulars, an older man who ordered apple pie with coffee daily, always left a quarter tip under the saucer. Another girl was soon hired full-time for the busy counter. One afternoon, she prepared a strawberry malt and I saw her insert the canister into the spinner — but not far enough. It rocketed through the air and skidded on the floor, but not before ejecting its contents all over, including on my yellow uniform. My boss walked up to me and shouted, “Miss Weiner, did you do that?” I tried to explain but he didn’t believe me. The bright pink dripping off my uniform convinced him of my guilt. The new girl just watched. He ordered me to return my uniform and leave. My public humiliation at the counter burned for weeks. In September, I returned to school, armed with a tougher shell and more prepared for “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Still, I wondered if the apple pie guy cared enough to ask why I’d gone missing.


flatulence
Blue Waters

I’m not sure how old I was when I first heard the word flatulence. Maybe 8 or 9. I knew it to be a polite way of saying farts, so that was something to ponder. I enjoyed the fine art of creative farting. A solitary artform, for the most part, and the best place to go to practice it was high up in a cottonwood tree on a windy day. I would have extra beans for lunch and wait for my gut to gather up some powerful gasses. Then straddling a branch in various grandiose poses, I could force out some impossible combos of sweet little squeaks, quick pops, low rumbles, or hideously long blaaaaats. My posse of squirrels and crows would gather around me to enjoy the performance. And any living thing on the ground below would look up with big eyes to locate the source of all this raucous flatulence. Me!!


freedom
Carole Johnston

This is a meditation on the freedom to be lost. I want to be “cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown” on a mountaintop. I imagine rambling down the mountain, meandering here and there in a marigold yellow caravan, a green lantern in the window. I want to be a hawk streaking across dawn in a turquoise boat, into azure seas. I remember camping out on a red dirt mesa in Monument Valley, below a myriad of stars. Alone. No destination. Once I drove solo through mountains and desert, camping beneath stars and pine trees, free to linger here and there, no commitments, responsible to no one. Once I danced on a windy hill in Norwich, making magic with the Hawthorn Queen (the poet Joy McCall) in the power of a fairy ring. Now . . .  freedom is a memory that lights up my brain like a poem of the open road.


flames
Christina Martin

Eyes glazed, not really seeing. That's what happens when I stare too long at the flames in the fireplace, floating into another world, a world of safety and comfort, Christmas and birthdays and parties crackling with noise. The Swiss cottage we all used to stay at. And of course, snow. There has to be snow doesn't there — that's the best part! My snow castle is the tallest. It melts as my granddaughter walks through the door pulling off her hat. “Nana!”


friendship
Deborah Burke Henderson
 
The years have passed by, 58 to be exact, and her love continues to surround me, fill me, comfort me. We were 13 when we met, both navigating the white waters of adolescence. Over time, we have seen one another through the ebb and flow of each struggle, joy, and sorrow. Like bits of sea glass, treasures to be found in the tangle of black-green seaweed, our journeys have honed us. We have lost any sharp edges, polished by the turn of each wave, but still we sparkle in the dazzling noon light. Our connection is deep-rooted and ever constant. Our souls sing melodiously. Our friendship is a gift never to be taken away.


father
Ellen Orleans

The doctors say it’s a matter of weeks. I’m in the car with my father, driving away from the hospital. What I want him to say is This doesn’t seem possible. This can’t be real. How will I live without her? Instead he says, “I know how to use the dishwasher. I know how to use the microwave oven. I know how to use the washer and the dryer. I guess I’ll be okay.” If I were a different daughter, if he were a different father, perhaps I would not be stunned into silence. I’d forgive him for thinking of himself first. I’d remember he’s never lived alone. I’d feel pity. I am not that daughter. Four months later, I will listen to widowers speak of their wives: She was my best friend. She made me a better man. I’m an ex-Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, but living without her is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. These men are not my father.


forget
Jack Goldman

“Forget about it!” was my father’s way of telling me that, no, I couldn’t have that pair of rugged boots displayed in the window of our local shoe store. An especially emphatic “I said, forget about it!” was what followed if I continued to nag him. Once his verdict was rendered, it was final — basta! finito! end of discussion. Argument was useless. He never changed his mind. You almost had to admire his unshakeable judgment. But as I grew older, I came to question his injunction. How was I to forget something just because he told me to? Sure, I had to accept his refusal to buy me something I wanted or give me permission to, say, go Christmas caroling with some of my Christian friends. But, in the end, though I’m sure he didn’t realize it, I disobeyed him. “Forget about it?” I never did.


fennel
Jim Mazza

If I were to write in praise of my favorite flavor, it undoubtedly would be an ode to fennel or, as I prefer to think of it in Italian, the playfully-named, finocchio. Contemplating the flavors I love most — lemon, basil, and cinnamon come to mind. Yet, fennel, with its soft similarity to licorice, ranks on top. Fennel is an herb, which grows tall from a bulbous base, and is often thought of as a vegetable. And I say, yes, herb AND vegetable! Either way, given my severe case of finocchio fever, I can’t get enough of its enticing aroma and flavor. Years ago, we rented an ancient stone cottage in Liguria. When we arrived, we made our way through a steel gate opening onto a sizeable garden situated in front of the tiny, shuttered dwelling. The garden was comprised of hundreds of 4- and 5-foot-tall fennel plants — a dense, feathery forest of greens and whites and flowering yellows. Realizing we had arrived at a place that, for me, verged on the spiritual, I immediately dropped my luggage and leaned forward, burying my face among the feathery fronds. In my revery, I heard an unmistakable whispering: “Benvenuto … Welcome!”


first
Joan Leotta

Looking for part-time work, I stumbled upon a call for docents at Mount Vernon, home and resting place of George Washington, our first elected President. Soon, I was posted in rotation at various places on the Estate — the house, the garden, the tomb, etc. — to tell visitors that part of GW’s story. A reenactment was planned for December 14, 1999, the two hundredth anniversary of GW’s death. Docents vied for assignments that would let them watch most of the cortege. No one wanted to be the docent who would have to miss out, but someone had to remain in docent HQ. I also wanted to be a part of the event, but as newest docent, considering fairness, I offered myself to our supervisor as the person to stay behind. She was puzzled. I explained I felt as last hired, I should not take a coveted position from others. Two days later, “funeral” duties were posted. The HQ docent job was divided. No one would miss more than an hour of the festivities. Except me. My assignment? To accompany Mount Vernon’s press person all day. I got to see the entire reenactment. My offer to stay behind put me first. Last-hired, first to see all.


falling
Julie Lind

“Maybe we’ll see some seagulls at the Falls,” I said as I pulled out of the driveway. “I hate birds,” Nanny said. I nodded and turned onto Pine Avenue. The neighborhood changed when we passed the Middle School and entered downtown Niagara Falls. Houses were now hidden behind dilapidated factories. Smoke stacks emitted puffs of stale gray air that refused to be absorbed into the humidity. Behind them, I could make out the rapids of the Niagara River. I followed the signs to Goat Island. The grass became greener, the factories now in our wake. As we entered the park, I could see the mist of the Falls. I found a parking spot and helped Nanny out of the car. “Isn’t it nice?” she whispered, leading us to the mist. Though she was not even half a foot away from me, I could barely make out her words. Her voice was calmer than I had heard it since my aunt’s death. “So nice,” she repeated. She didn’t wait for me to respond. Her voice kept going. “Doesn’t it make me want to . . .  Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to fall in?”


forever
Kath Abela Wilson

fallen hero it is my father i am thinking of I have not written enough about him he was my forever passion to write he was a poet the first in my heart and i was first in his i always knew that and i was first of five children i  kept my place as he did in the forever heart of  the world but he forgot that forever lasts forever and he fell out of love he who created love and  forever in the first place every little bit of it his was the long long story and when he forgot that first was forever and left the whole of it and disappeared and i found he found another I called and said you have gone against everything you taught me about forever he started a new forever and a new first she left her own forever for him in the end became my friend because we shared that forever she told me after his long long silence in the end he fell down the front stairs away from her and she still loved him too


flowers
Kathleen Kramer       

Dad never bought flowers for Mother. Unless you count the spray of roses we bought in his name for her coffin. He couldn’t go to her funeral. He had had too much of death and his 75-year love for our mother didn’t need his presence to confirm what we all knew to be true — she was the center of his life and would remain so, regardless of whether she was alive or not. More than once after she died I overheard him reliving some memory with her in his quiet, raspy voice. And although Dad never bought flowers for Mother, he brought her flowers — often. Honeysuckle, pink and wild. Lilacs, purple and white, drooping with their perfume. Apple blossoms from the crab apple tree in the backyard and from gnarled, abandoned orchards behind old barns. We were always glad to see the flowers drinking their fill from a mason jar placed squarely in the middle of the blue-topped dinette table in the kitchen. Their fragrance filled our house. And our mother, breathing it in, knew, in spite of  her failing sight, that Dad loved her.


fuel
Lou Robinson
 
Food for the animals. Hay stacked to the ceiling; dry and frozen dog food stored. Heater in the water tank. Bag of carrots. Am I spoiled? Yes but. So many signs of early deprivation all around me. Mostly lack of love, or abundance of cruelty, and I can’t feed them all. I want the barn full but I don’t want to feel full. When we canoed to the farmer’s market we’d canoe back with baskets full of healthy vegetables. The return was hard paddling, upstream, startling nesting egrets along the shore into flight. Keep everything moving. Anxiety is fear of stasis. Everything, even water, runs to stay alive, or at least until death catches up.


funnies
Margaret Dennis

My Aunt Ki always read us the funny papers on Sunday. It was a ritual. After 9 o’clock Mass, she would walk my little brother Johnny and me to Fred’s News Store, just around the corner from our house. Fred’s store had everything, but what we liked best were the racks of comic books. Ki had rules: we could each pick two, but there was to be no romance for me and no war themes for Johnny. Ki picked up the bulky Sunday paper and waited patiently for us to make our choices. When at last we were ready, we went up to the counter to pay Fred. He was always the one behind the cash register. Fred had a very mean look and only one “regular” hand. His left hand wore a brown glove and it remained still, down along his side. We kids were fascinated by that and tried not to look, but we looked, every time. Once the transaction was complete, we would leave and head for our house. There we would settle on the couch, with Aunt Ki sitting between Johnny and me. Then she would read aloud the “funnies.” There was Sluggo and Nancy, Terry and the Pirates, and my favorite, Brenda Starr. Sunday was the best day of the week.


fascinated
Margaret Walker
 
A tiny white-haired lady with a cane boarded the Metro. Seated near the door I motioned to her to sit beside me and greeted her in my execrable French. Hearing me speak a few words to my husband she asked if I was American. “Oui, madame.” She told me she loved Americans but had not talked with one in many years. She had learned some English from American soldiers who liberated her village outside Paris during WWII and proudly recited the English words she remembered — a total of about 20. At our Metro stop I was so engrossed in this conversation that we rode on as she told me, with gestures when I didn’t understand, about living in France during WWII and the glory of the liberation of Paris. Tears filled her eyes — and mine. At her stop, she thanked me (as if I had personally liberated France), took my right hand in both of hers, and kissed me on the cheek. Lifetime souvenirs — the stories of one-time strangers.


fame
Pris Campbell

I’m at a posh Menninger’s Foundation party at APA (the American Psychological Association) in Washington, D.C, and I’m talking to Claude Brown, famed author of the top-selling Manchild In The Promised Land. The book describes his experiences growing up Black in a time when water fountains and bathrooms still said “whites only,” and his years of trouble with the law during and after. I was invited to the party because I worked as an extern at Menninger’s one summer, during grad school, and Claude was invited by an older female psychiatrist from Menniger’s, his “sort of” date. She eyes us now possessively from across the room. Even though we’re not nearly through with what has become an intense conversation, her attention is wearing us down, so he asks me to spend the next day with him. He plans to briefly see two old protest buddies from college days and then look around Washington again. I go along, and we have a great time before parting at the end of the day. We live too far apart to plan future visits. More than a decade passes and I read a syndicated column written by him. In it he talks about his Black friends calling him “marshmallow” because he has White friends, doesn’t speak jive, and likes classical music. Every time he feels he has become just one of the group with his White friends, someone says “and what is the Black point of view on that?” and he’s reminded that, despite all, his skin color still separates him from them. I write him a note of encouragement and send it through the paper but I don’t know if he gets it, or if he even remembers me all these years later. The next time I look him up I discover that he died in his early sixties. In my mind I rerun that day we spent together in Washington, so long ago, and wish that things would have changed in this country by now.


fairies
Theresa A. Cancro

I have always been fascinated by fairies. I guess it started with the poems my mom wrote to accompany her detailed color pencil drawings. I remember "Moon Fairies": "I know moon fairies dwell within the woodland/ Among tangled honeysuckle brambles and wild rose briar . . ." In the first grade, my teacher assigned groups of three or four kids short skits based on poems and songs she came across. That spring, on a small school stage, my two classmates and I — all of us normally very quiet and shy — sang, danced, and skipped to "Ring-a-ring o' Fairies/ Pixies, sprites and elves/ Dancing with a little child/ As nimble as themselves . . ." It was as if Mrs. Lutz knew of my fondness for these mythical beings. Later, when I was a bit older, I imagined tiny humans with butterfly and moth wings flitting among lily-of-the-valley and pink weeping cherry blossoms in our small garden. On my nightstand now is a fairy figurine, complete with stained-glass wings.


forecast
Tina Wright

I love weather and thinking about it. Farmers have always been obsessed with meteorology, way before the Weather Channel and even before the Old Farmers’ Almanac, from which I still remember the winter warning, “When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen.” Making hay in summer takes a lot of forecasting. You mow hay when expecting a few days of good weather and the next day waiting for a heavy dew to burn off the rows of cut hay before you can rake and bale the hay up. A nice sunny day with very little dew and a farmer thinks, “It’s going to rain later.” Because of the lack of dew. There is counterintuitive forecasting on these kinds of days, it can be hot and really humid, you wouldn’t think hay would dry but before a new front of rain, hay dries really fast in the humid air. And you are racing to beat the rain. The Spectrum News weather report on TV is called a Futurecast, what an irritating made-up word! For gosh sake, guessing whatever weather spell the goddesses are sending our way, that’s a forecast.


forgetting
Tom Clausen

So much to forget. Yes, I did get an “F” on several tests and exams through high school and college. But amazingly to me, my parents, and my friends at the time, my serious struggles to not get an “F” were just enough to avoid getting one as my final grade. The label of “failing” was often a close call but not what defined me! For the record, I did get 12 credit hours of D-minus in my junior year of college and a letter was sent to my parents, explaining my poor performance and saying that if repeated in the next semester it would result in suspension and a need to withdraw from future studies. It was a scare enough to get me to do better and I began (to try) to forget that I had done so poorly. Here, fifty years later, I have mostly forgotten all my earlier trials and tribulations but of course those failings still reside in some place, like all failings that we try to forget but never totally can . . . until everything, even the best memories, are forgotten. 


fish
Zee Zahava

Betty and Jay are our neighbors who live in the apartment next door to us on Vyse Avenue. Sometimes I go there so Betty can watch me if Mom needs a break. They have a daughter named Susan who is always in her crib, sleeping. She is a boring baby. Jay is a skinny man who blinks a lot and he talks very fast. He keeps big fish in a small fish tank. I don’t like him. Betty wears her hair in a pony tail the same way I do, which is funny because I’m just a girl but she is a grown-up woman. One day when I’m sitting on their living room rug, watching the fish go back and forth, I figure out how to tie my own shoelaces. When Mom comes to pick me up I run to the door to show her what I’ve done. But Betty gets there first and tells Mom that she taught me how to make the bows. She lied! She was in the bedroom with boring Susan the whole time. I don’t say a word because Betty seems so happy. She’s bouncing up and down and that makes her pony tale swoosh back and forth. But a few months later Betty and Jay and Susan move away. Betty is crying, the day they leave. My mother doesn’t cry and neither do I. An old lady moves in next door to us. We don’t even know her name and she never invites us into her apartment. I don’t know for absolute certain but I have a pretty strong feeling that she doesn’t own any fish.