Onset of my Quonset
When I think hut I always think of the grassy beach
hat one of my aunts wore. Conical not pointy. Maybe
going natural so she didn’t have to comb her hair. Primitive
dwelling. Wattle and daub. A place to rent miniature
golf clubs or choose ice cream. Rabbit hutch. The hutch
where my mother lovingly laid out her plates. And soup bowls.
Hut! As in attention. As in where Cliff Robertson didn’t know
he lay in wait for Sandra Dee. Because innocence
always knocks you on the head no matter which side
of the skull you’re on. Little grass shack. Suggesting
nothing to flush. Suggesting Fiji and maybe Gauguin
had it right—never mind his wife and his children. Vernacular
architecture. First binary step from mouth to ear. Sound
we make (cluck, cluck) when we’re steering the flock.
Susan Grimm
Susan Grimm is the author of Almost Home (Cleveland State University Poetry Center 1997), Lake Erie Blue (BkMk Press 2004), and Roughed Up by the Sun’s Mothering Tongue (Finishing Line Press 2011). Her work has appeared in Blackbird, The Journal, The Cortland Review, Seneca Review, and Tar River Poetry. She earned an MFA in poetry through the Northeast Ohio MFA consortium (NEOMFA) and teaches creative writing part-time at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She also occasionally teaches classes for Literary Cleveland. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and can be found online at The White Space Inside the Poem.