Can you write someone else’s memoir? No, you can’t. But you can take someone else’s memory and make it into a poem. I didn’t grow up in a farmhouse, with god-fearing parents, but my husband did. His experiences inspired this poem “Lost Faith”, which Thimble Literary Magazine included in its latest issue.
Read it here: http://thimblelitmag.com or below:
Lost Faith
Right there in the kitchen, the wood stove glowed scarlet.
Mama filled the metal tub and steam rose to the ceiling, fogged the window.
The small boy scrubbed himself with Lifebuoy soap, red and foamy,
good enough for the Holsteins, sometimes the goats.
A tight basin for a nine year old, knees bent to his chin,
hair dripping, intent on righteousness and salvation,
he removed hay from between his toes, goose shit from under his fingernails.
Tomorrow would be church, polished pews, cleanliness and godliness,
the preacher’s scowl, the rousing hymns,
his sisters with plaid bows in their hair, heads bowed,
then, chicken pot pie afterwards, Papa saying grace.
Now adult and agnostic, he’d go back to the farm in a minute,
curl up again in the Saturday bath,
the warmth and the water like a weekly baptism,
re-live the fire and brimstone along with the love,
if only he still believed.
Gabriella Brand 
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