by Kristin Garth
It can happen anywhere to women
even in the coffee shop where you write,
employees so polite you are given
a Christmas card, wee tree, evergreen bright
inked signatures, iced sugar cookies that
they know you like. You think I have a space
maybe I have to pay for, little chit-chat
between the sonnets, look up, see a face
that smiles, safe waif, until the day you can
not find your keys. Half hour you think it’s you
because losing’s what you do. Then some man
propels your keys as he runs — know you’re through.
You’ll write alone behind a chained, locked door;
it’s one more place you can’t go anymore.
Note from the Author
I write a lot of Shakespearean sonnets. I’m also a bit of a recluse. One of my treats to me in writing is to go to coffee shops and write there, and I have a regular one Starbucks where I had a terrible experience one day that took time to process. Someone took my keys — the entire store was helping me look while this man sat in the midst of this activity holding onto my keys the whole time. Only when I called a ride in tears to go and try to start the process of making new keys and all the hassle did this man stand up, look at me and toss me my keys as he ran out of the store. It was the strangest experience and I felt totally unsafe and wondering what this whole thing was about. I had a rough day writing this sonnet about the loss of safe spaces for women, and how unfortunate and also common that is. Thank you for reading it.
Kristin Garth is a Pushcart & Best of the Net nominated sonnet stalker. Her poetry has stalked magazines like Glass, Yes, Five:2: One, Anti-Heroin Chic, Former Cactus, Occulum, Luna Luna, & many more. She has five chapbooks Pink Plastic House and Good Girl Games (Maverick Duck Press), Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press, Sept 2018), Shakespeare for Sociopaths (Hedgehog Poetry Press), and Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press, March 2019). Her full length, Candy Cigarette, is forthcoming April 2019 (The Hedgehog Poetry Press). She has a collaborative full length A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony forthcoming (Rhythm & Bones Press) in June 2019. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie), and her website (kristingarth.com).