Pelham Brook, Summer, 1979

BY MARGARET A. HABERMAN

Back when Janey Cleeland and I practiced

witchcraft, we walked the Zoar Road, twisting

down the mountain to Pelham Brook, sowing

spells. Barely nineteen, fleeting friends,

summer. Janey, fearless, knew only

how to turn to stone.

I waded into pools of water, shapeshifting,

skimming, from salamander to sculpin,

brook trout, to frog. On my back I touched

blue and green of sky, maple, and oak.

Flipping over, my hands grazed the cluttered

streambed, moving through shallow places.

The night before, a woman named Lola

cut our hair, braiding mine into a thick plait;

then, scissoring through each strand,

she handed it to me, bound at each end,

in tan rubber bands, while quoting the Bible,

Sampson and Delilah: the glory of God.

In the clear water of Pelham Brook, I washed

away the loose threads of the unnecessary—

Lola, the stool I sat on as she sheared

and made me new, the scissors, the braid,

Janey, the white light we conjured to protect us,

me from fear, she from anger—gone.

That summer we learned what we were made

of—the chiseled granite she was even then

becoming; I shed the clothes that bound me,

slipping below the cool surface, buoyed and

descending, becoming water, moving over

the refracted magic of each river stone.

In response to and inspired by: Constructive Interference, Jessica Lee Ives

Margaret Haberman has been an American Sign Language interpreter since 1984. At the age of 11, Margaret was convinced that a poem she’d written would be perfect for Seventeen magazine. In the time since, she has been working with a variety of programs, teachers and mentors, studying and practicing poetry.