Soap by Karin Gottshall

Soap

by Karin Gottshall

(published in Juked, 2013)

It is full bitter winter when I begin

to bleed. Too ashamed to tell. Aligning myself

with the crows I take the back way home.

Pages of book reports blown down the hill.

What constitutes anger is passion plus a disappointment

of hopes. Bad math. The body plus the smell

of burning. The Pine-Sol ghost of the school hall

and early mornings I can’t wake up. The fluorescent

bulb was invented for us, and the closed window.

Moths hatching from the oatmeal. I have the most tender

feeling and nowhere to apply it. Superstitious, I walk

only where the path is most difficult, stack my pennies

by year, nurse a private longing for fancy soaps.

Monthly this extra thing I can’t use, and meanwhile

so much else I can’t have. Candles lit

on the windowsills when my mother can’t pay

the electric bill. We make the best of it, all that soft light.

This poem does so much more than encapsulate the mix of feelings many girls have when they first menstruate--it embodies the complexity of emotions that occurs in teens. Add to that, as the poet does here, poverty, and you have this amazing poem.

A few favorite lines as far as adolescent emotions:

What constitutes anger is passion plus a disappointment/of hopes.

Monthly this extra thing I can’t use, and meanwhile/so much else I can’t have.

I love the way that the poet relays information; not only do we get things in non-linear bits, but the fragmented sentences add to the tone and the speaker's inner thoughts.

"Moths hatching from the oatmeal." is a terrifically powerful line and image. It conveys not only a sense of poverty and neglect, but also a sense of people who have given up. But the speaker has not given up entirely--she aligns herself with crows, holds on to superstitions, and longs for fancy soaps. Although different from a Wish List containing Go to college, Buy a car, and such things, those connections and desires speak to a future.

The last sentence in the poem also makes us readers feel confident this speaker will make it, as she turns the darkness into a positive of soft light. That sentence/image also stands in both connection and opposition to the of the first description of "full bitter winter."

Each time I read this poem, I think of my own teen years. As with all of us, they were different from the speaker's and yet the same. The confusion, the feeling of being better connected with birds than with others, keeping secrets--all very common. It is sometimes a wonder anyone gets through adolescence.

You can learn more about the poet, Karin Gottshall, at her website here. She is the author of two books of poetry, The River Won't Hold You and Eclipse Season.