Stonecoast Review
The Literary Journal of the Stonecoast MFA
Gaslighting the Goose
By Pamela Wax
Consider how having a uterus made one suspect, how
the Egyptians compared the womb to a beast
besieging the female body; how the Greeks prescribed
wine and orgies; Freud, marriage. How any malady
could be a symptom, how “nervous weakness” kept
her home where she belonged. And remember
the scheming of Charles Boyer, how he nearly
drove Ingrid round the bend, distracting her
from his crimes, their house lights flickering
and noises out of nowhere. Now picture that strike
of geese, how Sully Sullenberger piloted that plane
to safe landing on the Hudson, how such collisions cost
airlines billions a year, all those wings and feathers,
those mangled engines: how they hatched
a plan, oiled the eggs behind the goose’s back,
smothering. Imagine this would-be mother, her instinct
for nesting. How her eggs will never hatch, no matter
how many she lays, or days she broods. “Addling”
describes this avian version of mindfuck. The mother,
hysterical, who sits and sits in the dark, expecting.
PAMELA WAX is the author of Walking the Labyrinth (Main Street Rag, 2022) and Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems have received a Best of the Net nomination and awards from Crosswinds, Paterson Literary Review, Poets’ Billow, Oberon, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House. She has been published in dozens of literary journals including Barrow Street, Tupelo Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Chautauqua, The MacGuffin, Nimrod, Solstice, Mudfish, Connecticut River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Slippery Elm. An ordained rabbi, Pam offers spirituality and poetry workshops online and around the country. She lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts.
This poem originally appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 21.
Photo by Saad Chaudhry
