she’s in trouble
by Kathleen Hellen
she’s in trouble
After Frigyes Karinthy
so you offer some suggestions—craft shows, festivals—after she shows you on her phone the bloody mess that was his leg before the amputation…blames the paver, blames herself because they’d fought, because he looked away…shows you pictures of the boxes that he makes…puts the boxes up on Facebook, shows you pictures of the kids…a cake to prove to social services the birthday celebrations…says the DUI was not his fault because she thinks you think it’s all his fault—because a woman like yourself never rents a room at Motel 6 unless….
Kathleen Hellen is the author of The Only Country was the Color of My Skin, the award-winning collection Umberto’s Night, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Letters and Commentary, Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, jubilat, The Massachusetts Review, New American Writing, New Letters, North American Review, Poetry East, and West Branch, among others. Hellen has won the Thomas Merton poetry prize and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review. For more on Kathleen visit https://www.kathleenhellen.com/.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “she’s in trouble”? The poem began with a chance meeting. I had been driving three days from Las Cruces to Amarillo, Amarillo to Springfield, then too tired to drive on that night, I pulled off at the Motel 6, just outside of Dayton. Her name was Krystal. I guess you always think your story is the saddest until you meet somebody sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi—somebody who makes you realize that everyone is carrying some kind of suffering.
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