Poetry: The Talkies

The Talkies

When I was twelve

my mom enrolled me in an acting class at the Westfield Y.

We pretended we were mirrors and starfished ourselves on the marble floor.

I sat next to Weird Meghan,

who licked the flat backs of toy gems and

pasted them to her forehead.

She smelled like spit.

Filtered into groups of four, we practiced skits

for the showcase. I was in a bit

about the talkies, waving lacy hands

and saying things like

“Marvelous!” and “Darling!”

I focused on making my words slow and breathy, like the sigh of air

as it escapes a pinpricked balloon.

Weird Meghan's voice scuttled at the bottom of her register

and her jokes didn't make sense.

Our teacher moaned “Higher,

higher!” as Weird Meghan stared

pale-face blank, plastic jewels peeling from her skin

with the sticky resistance of tape on a wall.

During breaks, Weird Meghan sat on a broken radiator in the girl's bathroom.

I listened to her guttural voice curl around her words—

phelgmy stories about Sailor Moon and vampires.

Once she wrote the name of an Egyptian pharaoh on a square

of toilet paper and made me promise not to say it out loud.

It was cursed; whoever said it would go deaf.

I imagined sound being replaced by that mute

ring my ears make when I'm underwater.

That class, I watched my teacher's coral lips shape air, words

floating like smoke signals.

I still remember the way my lines

lifted like heat off the ground.

The way my voice rose with

Where ever you turn

all you hear is sound!


- Maryrose Mullen