Kim Bridgford
/fall 1991
NICKNAMES
“The way Mother talked, everything was connected so that if one thing went wrong a whole life could unravel like a sweater with a loose thread.”
BY KIM BRIDGFORD - FROM ROANOKE REVIEW, 1991
current work
A PENTINA FOR ERASURE
Sometimes it is what is missing that you want, regardless
Of its value. It just means, really, you can’t remember
What it was, and so it takes on the tint of nostalgia,
Something with a sepia fragrance and wayfarer tone.
Sometimes you are just saying that you are alone.
Not that being alone is bad. It is just that being alone
Makes you more like a number, or entity, regardless
Of your purpose or intention. It adjusts your tone.
You want the most that you can really remember,
And, if not, you’ll make it up: that is nostalgia.
When you were little, you didn’t understand nostalgia:
You thought it was a version of now, being alone
With yourself. You didn’t understand that, to remember,
You have to erase, you have to rewrite, regardless
Of the truth. Each person has an individual tone.
For example, when I think of childhood, its soft tone,
It doesn’t have anything to do with me, that nostalgia,
And it informs everything I do. So it is, regardless.
The past is like the pronoun “it”: sitting there alone,
Inviting others to interpret it. You try to remember
What you were trying to say. Who can remember?
In any event, it has a glow, it has a shape and tone.
When you are older, by yourself, living there alone,
You understand the viewpoint is purely nostalgia:
All of it, from your kitchen chair, thinking, regardless
Of any other tactic, regardless of your coffee or tone,
Regardless of what you remember, other than being alone.
a note from the author
About “Nicknames”: We tend to trust adults, and it doesn't occur to us that they may—or may not—be telling the truth. When we find out the real story, we may be aghast, or made stronger.
About “Pentina for Erasure”: I have been preoccupied with issues of erasure for many years. What we take as truth may only be perception. That is much clearer to me as I've gotten older.
photo of Kim Bridgford by Marion Ettlinger
Kim Bridgford is the author of thirteen books of poetry, including A Crown for Ted and Sylvia, recently released from Wipf and Stock. Her fiction has appeared in Redbook, The Georgia Review, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. Bridgford and her collaborator/colleague Jo Yarrington are launching three new books in November on Iceland, Venezuela, and Bhutan, commemorating their trips to those countries. With Russell Goings, Bridgford rang the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange, in celebration of his book The Children of Children Keep Coming, for which she wrote the introduction.
