when cell phones were science fiction and people were still buzzing about a man walking on the moon the yearbook committee predicted I’d win a gold medal in gymnastics I wasn’t even on the high school team
peer enthusiasm was all the arm twist I needed to get my rainbow seeking self out of the cornfields and into the asphalt jungle where I juggled four jobs and scratched out scenes on cocktail napkins and coffee stained placemats for a novel whose heroine learns laughter is often mistaken for cheering
my tips carried me to Paris where I trained as a pastry chef and wrote in real notebooks in cafés on the left bank the novel remains unfinished but this poem is dedicated to all the cheerleaders stuck in cornfields
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Read "The Poetry Lesson", another poem by Jocosa Wade here on Lightwood. Scroll to our Search Button, insert the author's name and click.
Jocosa Wade is a recovering actress turned writer living in New York’s Hudson Valley. She holds an MFA in Performance from the University of New Orleans. Her one-act Beating the Odds was first produced as part of the Washington D.C. Theatre Festival and later at Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal. She recharges her creativity with poetry, long walks in the shadow of the Shawangunk Ridge and making the best baklava ever.
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