Stand out,
smooth by sea and salt.
Angry-gray scrubbing,
evident by your distinct cracks,
your skull horns.
Paint your body scars
from vicious storms and calamity.
Your triumph is your ugly.
Click here to read Linda Lamenza on the origin of the poem.
Image by Marek Ledl on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
Linda Lamenza:
As I’ve traveled through different channels of my life, each one inevitably brings me back to the ocean. I am most centered and do my best work when I can breathe salty air, contemplate tides, recognize the music of gulls and rumbling waves, and stand with my feet in sand. I wrote “Menopause” by the ocean at Split Rock Cove in South Thomaston, Maine. I believe my writing has shifted with the wisdom of menopause, which can be a time of great self-hatred for women. We find ourselves shape-shifting once again and questioning as if we have returned to our adolescent selves: Am I fat? Am I ugly? Do I care what others think? Learning what it means to live as an older woman means accepting both physical and mental changes. This poem is the courage to embrace and celebrate aging. And to find our own strength, even through challenging times and the threat of the modern world invading our peace.
Linda Lamenza is a literacy specialist in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in Lily Poetry Review, The Comstock Review, Nixes Mate Review, Ovunque Siamo and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Left-Handed Poetry (Finishing Line Press, 2024), was a finalist for Hunger Mountain’s May Day Mountain Chapbook Series. Nixes Mate published her collection of poems, Feast of the Seven Fishes, in 2024. Linda lives in the Boston area with her quirky Italian Greyhound, Leela. She loves her job teaching reading to Kindergarten through fifth graders at Hanscom School, on the Hanscom Air Force Base.
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