“What I Learned from ‘I Dream of Jeannie’” by Susan Rich

What I Learned from I Dream of Jeannie

I Dream of Jeannie was a 1965 sitcom created to compete
with the always more popular, Bewitched.

That the astronaut kept a woman 
in a bottle, like a message. 

And she seemed to love living 
alone with red silk pillows, brocade curtains. 

A one-room apartment so small 
he could never enter. 

That a woman could wear pants, keep 
her hair pony-tailed as long as her 

breasts pointed to the sky like rockets. 
Once, Jeannie ventured to Cocoa Beach 

in her metallic blue convertible. 
The boys called out bombshell, knockout. 

Once, she brought her infant 
niece, Amina, to visit for a week. 

What was the world 
and what could it offer her? 

In the final show, the network
forced her into a marriage with the Major. 

By then the ratings had dropped —
Jeannie found herself without air. 

Now, I dream of her often, offer
one more wish to return her to power —

abracadabra, her bottle reappears, 
abracadabra, her home still waiting there.

Susan Rich

Susan Rich is the author of six books of poetry and co-editor of two anthologies. Her most recent book, Blue Atlas, is just out from Red Hen Press. Her awards include a PEN USA Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Times Literary Supplement Award. Rich’s poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Bennington Review, New England Review, O Magazine, Image Journal, Poetry Ireland, and elsewhere. She makes her home along the shore of Puget Sound.

Headshot: Rosanne Olson

Photo Credit: Staff