NIKKI WALLSCHLAEGER
Why Do I Feel So Old When I Look So Young
Why do I feel so old
when I look so young
have a night of ok fun
& I feel better & younger
refreshed, maybe lovelier
but soon enough
I feel just as old again.
Hey friend how are you
I see you’re young too
around the same age as me.
Look at those folks with their
big boy pens & crooked chairs
They act younger than we do
& our lives are somewhere else
in faces even older than this.
When I was younger
people thought I was older
so they did older people
things to me said things too
probably why I’m feelin old
while I’m still lookin’ young
cuz of what older people did
when I was little should’ve
known better not to do.
Say friend I hear you too
things happened to you
that’s the way evil goes
lets people do bad things
don’t know why that is but
the how is inside the what
tying the ends of the who
maybe we can stop it from
going to the next someone
Yes it’s like that: could’ve
the should’ve & the would’ve
I would’ve known then what
I know now maybe I could’ve
got out of the way but I was
too young and now I’m older
outside the what and the who
still inside the how & the why
let me introduce my old ass self:
How do you do my name is Young
plus the last time I loved w/o fear
Nobody Special
Pick up my candles and dust them
I don’t know how the spirits get in
Housework is done by nobody special
That’s the way it’s always been
Been working since I was a babe
I come home now and work for free
Housework is done by nobody special
That’s the way it’s always been
I’m nobody special, nobody special
A washerwoman behind the cream
Got the ammunition ready for them
Playing with what they think of me
I’m nobody special, nobody special
A seamstress with an oxen squad
No day off in a month of Novembers
Busy making overalls for your grain
Dress up my candles and light them
I have a long long night ahead of me
Housework is done by nobody special
That’s the way it’s always been
Been working before I was born
Mother waiting on tables with me
Housework is done by nobody special
That’s the way it’s always been
I’m nobody special, nobody special
Waiting for some answers tonight
Hoping somebody will hear me out
While the light keeps flickering, flickering
Birthday Poem
Picked some flowers
what was left and turning
leaves quit and origin exhales
new shoots growing off a ripe
mother leaf in a tangerine hollow
one of your best sentences today
was when I asked where you were
“I’m by this tree Mama” playing with
gravel and crust so you ran laughed
made me search for your little cars that
you tossed into a union of stinging nettles
I was born today and I’m not that bad at this
parenthood thing in a sweated up house dress
slip-on sandals and competent headscarf following
you instead of taking a shower or watching my shows
guiding you back to the house so I can place the later
blossoms in water change your pants first since you have
burrs all over your backside preheat the oven for chicken
scold the dog for not cooling his strength when he plays with you.
Yes, it’s not the ideal flower arrangement. But why should it have to be.
Nikki Wallschlaeger’s work has been featured in The Nation, Georgia Review, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Witness, PoetryNow podcast through the Poetry Foundation and others. She is the author of the full-length collections Houses (Horseless Press 2015) and Crawlspace (Bloof 2017) as well as the graphic chapbook I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel from Bloof Books (2016). She lives in Wisconsin.