‘Listen, Mary’

Photographer Grace Sleeman

Listen, Mary

-after Mary Reufle

I am me but

I should have been a swing set, I think.  

Or maybe an old oak,

torn down and printed into copies 

of The Fellowship of the Rings

that got mangled and water damaged

at Woodstock because someone 

dressed as Gandalf 

wielded it like the Bible,

read chapters like sermons to

the crowds before tossing it out to them.

I want to be that offering. 

Or maybe the Gandalf-prophet.  

Instead, I fold into an origami star and

toss myself in the trashcan.  I wish

I were a tea kettle.  

Once the water is done boiling 

I’ll sing and know I exist.

At least my voice 

will have a purpose.  

If I wore a prettier face would the

world move a little closer to me? 

That should say

you instead of world,

but I don’t want you to know 

I’d like you that close.  

I also do want you to know,

but I don’t want the birds and the

secret things between these walls

to know that either.  

I ought to have gone through life 

screaming my truths,

but first I need to learn them.

Heather Neidlinger is a 3rd year MFA student at Western Kentucky University with a concentration in poetry. Her work often lingers in the crossroads between nature, “mundane” human experiences, and grief. She is a winner of AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards and has pieces forthcoming in Quarterly West, The Passionfruit Review and Red Flag Poetry.

Grace Sleeman is a poet and photographer living and working in Portland, Maine. Her photographic practice is focused on intimacy between subject and photographer. Her work has appeared in Koukash Review, Bardics Anonymous, and Noise Magazine, among other publications. You can find her online at @myrmiidons.