In To Get Here, Wendy Mnookin takes us into a family transformed by the unexpected–a child in danger. Using shifting chronology and different voices, Mnookin explores the family's efforts to understand the changing reality of their lives. As the child's distress threatens to engulf them, we come to understand more about our own struggles to save those we love and, finally, to love even those we cannot save.
Superman
The chair is hard.
The afternoon sun leaves no cool corner.
And that jittery pecking of birds--
his mother's fingers, plucking at threads.
He stares through her fingers,
through the spooling thread, out
past the barn, the lowing spotted cow,
past corn tassels flaunting pollen,
over molecules, their tumbling polka--
who wants to look
like his mother sews his clothes,
wants to feel pinned
and gathered and snipped and sewed,
tucked and buttoned inside?
Available editions:
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Paperback ISBN: 1-880238-73-x
Price: $12.50
Publishing Date: July 1999