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Sandra Yannone’s debut collection, Boats for Women, was published by Salmon Poetry (Ennistymon, Ireland) in 2019. Salmon published The Glass Studio in February, 2024. Her poetry and book reviews have appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry Ireland Review, Lambda Literary Review, and numerous others. Since March, 2020, she has hosted the weekly reading series Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry on Zoom via Facebook. Visit her at sandrayannone.com.
From the pages of all those Tiger Beat magazines you purchased with your allowance, I became more like sugar with each poster you pulled from the centerfold’s staples. I never liked that my crotch was always pinned to the crease, that girls tugged at my sleeves, ripped off my clothes and shredded what was left of me at my concerts. I was hoping to be a firefly that feasted on night flowers, leaving my scent behind with my original songs, the ones no one heard over the din of those pop hits that ABC’s money moguls shoveled into my mouth. During boxed lunches on the set, I had to sign thousands of postcards to girls I’d never meet. I was drowning, Sandy, in the fountain of teen idol fame, and I didn’t know how to swim. Who does in that kind of water? So I vanished into those cheap newsprint pages of 16 magazine. I became a paper ghost and only the drugs and sex told me that I was alive. What can I say? Why am I risking this from the great beyond to share with you? I think you know better than the lyrics to “I Think I Love You.” Every poem is a spotlight that shines the light back into your eyes. You need to keep them open to honest desires. Don’t get caught underneath the undertow of the trap door’s weight. Come on, you know how to escape, to get happy. You almost do it every day, except you act like it’s your shadow side. You never let yourself fully embrace the miracle of you. I sang all those songs on those albums that I know you still sing, when you are alone or driving with your sister in her van. I know you gave a private concert to Tara Hardy in your living room, that you have two microphones at the ready to practice when you feel inspired by my lips open to songs you wore down the needles on your record player to hear over and over again. I wasn’t ready for everything that came next after the gold records and the show’s opening credits dressed in mod. I should have shaken off that Partridge Family tree sooner, but this isn’t my ending; this is your beginning. So come on, stay happy, swallow my songs, my prayers for that girl long ago who loved me as no one could. Retire all those faded fan magazines; you know you are happier when you are locked inside the glass house where you’ve been waiting your whole life to sing.
Sandra Yannone published her debut collection, Boats for Women, in 2019 and will publish The Glass Studio in 2022 with Salmon Poetry. Her poems and reviews have appeared in print and online journals including Sweet, Ploughshares, Poetry Ireland Review, Prairie Schooner, Impossible Archetype, The Blue Nib, Live Encounters, Women’s Review of Books, and Lambda Literary Review. She currently hosts Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry on Facebook via Zoom on Sundays. Visit her at www.sandrayannone.com.
