By Brenda Hillman
A brenda is missing—where is she?
Summon the seeds & weeds, the desert whooshes. Phone the finch
with the crowded beak; a little pretenda
is learning to read
in the afternoon near the cactus caves. Near oleander & pulpy
caves with the click-click of the wren & the shkrrrr of the thrasher,
a skinny pretenda is learning
to read till the missing brenda
is found. Drip of syllables like olives near the saguaro.
Nancy Drew will find the secret in raincoats & wednesdays
& sticks. Nancy whose spine is yellow
or blue will find the brenda in 1962,
Nancy who has no mother,
who takes suggestions from her father & ignores them.
Gleam goes the wren ignoring the thorn. They cannot tell the difference.
Click of the smart dog’s nails on linoleum.
Nancy bends over the clues,
of brenda’s locket & dress. Word by word
between syllables a clue. Where has the summer gone, the autumn—
are they missing too? Maybe Nancy
will parse the secret & read the book report on Nancy Drew:
“neat pretty sly cute.” Syllable by syllable
& still no brenda! Nancy
puts her hand to her forehead; is the missing
girl in the iron bird? is the clue to the girl in the locket?
Brenda Hillman, “Girl Sleuth” from Practical Waters. Copyright © 2009 by Brenda Hillman. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: Practical Waters (Wesleyan University Press, 2009)
Poet Bio
Brenda Hillman was born in Tucson, Arizona, and attended Pomona College, where she received a bachelor’s degree, followed by the University of Iowa, where she earned an M.F.A. She has been a member of the faculty at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, since 1984. She once told Contemporary Authors: “I am interested in the presence of spirit in matter and in how to have joy in a divided universe—that's what my poetry is mainly about. My tools are irony, the image, the broken narrative, and an intensely personal voice.”
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