| Chocolate Waters |
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| Everyone's Writing About Their Grandmothers These Days Grandmothers are of course always old  Mine was old So old that when she died They said she'd get no older She did get smaller My grandmother was big She only had one leg Lost the other one to gangrene Along with her gall bladder She was a good Christian lady But she didn't like blacks Because she afraid of them And her religion didn't contradict her My grandmother's name was Mary Maud When she was nine she picked tobacco worms from corn And cried When she was seventeen she married And I don't know if she cried She did give birth to fifteen children So I'm sure she must have cried My grandmother never spoke a curse word 'til the day she died "Let s go for a drive," she said to Merle her son He wheeled her through the living room She thought it was Dry Town, Pennsylvania The place where she was born "Shit," she said Pounding on her wheel chair Gazing at the scenery (Which was really only a few old lamps and the long green sofa) "These roads sure are hard on a tired old ass." My grandmother kept her billfold at the top Of her right breast Pulled dollar bills out for the children on request She melted down to eighty pounds And finally just sat and stared At the ground Her hands folded in her lap Peeping at the soles of people's shoes "It's Marianne," they said, "Come all the way from Denver just to see you." "My Lordy," she said, Staring at my dyke brown boots, "She's turned into an Amazon." The relatives laughed. Right on Grandma Right on I thought they told me You were senile |
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