7.21.12 "Crazy Mary"... A reflection of resentment. By Jill Parshley

A REFLECTION OF RESENTMENT can keep you down, just as it did Mary. I remembered Mary while growing up in Queens on 28th street. She'd mop the hallway floors of the apartment building we lived in with just a bra and slip on. And she'd yell at us while we played stoopball and Run, Catch & Kiss. She was the waitress at the diner my parents would go in when they were in their teens as lovebirds in Manhattan. She would brag to me years later of the delicious vanilla sodas and milkshakes she would serve them. Everyone called her "Crazy Mary" but most of us knew what was behind the "crazy". Here is one of my poems I will read tomorrow, Sunday July 22nd at the 2nd Annual NYC Poetry Festival on Govenor's Island. I should be reading at 12 noon on the Chumley's Stage with other Boundless Tales readers from Queens. There will be another stage with an open mic if you care to hop on up. Hope you can come and share some sun...

“Dear Mary”   by Jill Parshley ©September 2011

Mary sat many a times at the bar whimpering

An empty stool her only companion

The stars and sun both knew her well, piercing through the tall windows

A jack and coke, or a murphy’s ale was all she ever chose

Once she started, she could not stop

and in a cab I’d help her hop

And she often sat sad, with her eyes closed

Tears of smudged liner

above her ruddy nose

I didn’t have to ask

We all knew what happened

 I’d refill her glass

and replace her wet cocktail napkins

while nodding my head in compassion.

I started with Shirley temples at age seven  

then Sips of screwdrivers at eleven

But, sneaking 40 oz.’s and champagne at sweet sixteens could not slide

the secrets I hoped to hide,

and for years the spirits drove me to hell.

So I listen to her as I sip my gingerale

and until my shift is done, I spy Mary McDonnell and identify as one.

When Mary is in a blackout,

she still remembers that day,

while she slips into oblivion...

She had been playing near her garage with their son.

Her husband was off to work, it was a sunny day

when their little boy got in the way

of their car.

Her husband backed up and kept driving,

the sun’s glare was so blinding

that he couldn’t see the tricycle

(And the baby was killed)

The whole town showed up for the funeral,

but now alone, Mary just drinks and sits still.

It’s nothing we talk about but all that we know.

We crawl out of our skin

from the things that happen

And all the kings horses and all the kings men,

And all the whiskey can’t put Mary back together again.

Dear Mary,

I pray you will set yourself free, so that you can finally be.

And Dear Mary,

I hope for the day you will forgive,

So that you can finally live.