Categories
Issue 2 Poetry

Decorative Brass Fan

This is one of the older pieces in my collection-in-progress (the date I probably started receiving feedback was in November of 2019!), but I’ve had additional feedback on the poem since then, and I know that Writers Guild will always be there to look at subsequent drafts. The writing process is always a joy when there’s a community to share it with!

“Meanwhile in our own lives, we have no choice
but to be the protagonist, to drive the story forward,
see it through to the end” 
–Elizabeth Kerper, “A Poem in Which Jennifer Finstrom Is Not the Protagonist”

You sometimes wonder if you 
are the protagonist of a romantic comedy 
series streamed by interdimensional 
beings, imagine that you and your 
decisions are being discussed 
during the daily commute in some 
parallel universe. You can almost tell 
where episodes end, where there are minor 
cliffhangers and significant plot points, 
and it was almost surely the end of a season 
when you started out on one date but 
ended up on another the next day,
still in the same dress, kissing a different 
man near the entrance to the Monroe 
Red Line before finally going home. 
You turned 51 just over a week ago 
and have spent most of that time 
wondering why one man isn’t texting 
you but still going out with another. 
At brunch with a friend yesterday, 
you tried to come up with a new plan 
to approach the discomfort of feelings  
and didn’t have much luck. You 
determined that shopping helps, as does 
writing poems. You go to the Edgewater
Antique Mall after brunch and buy
a decorative brass fan to hang on 
your wall, hold it to your chest as you 
wander among the cases filled with holiday
figurines, jewelry and paperweights,
as if it could protect you, as if it could 
ward off whatever is coming next.

Jen Finstrom is both part-time faculty and staff at DePaul University. She was the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine for 13 years, and recent publications include 8 Poems and Escape into Life. Her work also appears in Ides: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks and several other Silver Birch Press anthologies.