Inside the red leather memory book
is a creased gray and white
picture,
the little girl stares fiercely up at me,
her blond hair spikes
from a dark barrett,
a shadow shows below one eye,
she tries to hide a
broken bottle from the camera,
I know the tire store in the background,
is made of green tin,
has
sooty flat windows
that break from a baseball,
that magic jewels are
made
from thick pieces of broken glass,
shards of alley bottles--beer,
coke, orange crush,
and that sometimes she was lucky enough
to bleed on
the clear pieces
that turned to rubies in the sun
Pub. May 1993
Midland Review
University of Oklahoma
IN THE PARTY
ROOM AT THE NURSING HOME
Grandmother sits quietly
a bird at the edge of a round stone bath--
a
little frayed, eyes bright with 102 years
of living, but she doesn't know my
name
shows no recognition when I lean
down and kiss her feathery cheek
She looks up instead
a chick waiting to see what her parents have brought
today
I give her a sweet kalach, filled with the summer
tartness of
raspberries
She pops it in her mouth, eyes darting
from my face to my fingers looking
for more
then licks her lips and sucks her tongue
smiling around the
little black seeds
Her eyes grow dreamy--she rocks a little
I think she remembers
raspberries
perhaps walking the woods with a boy
picking hot red morsels,
juice dripping
down their chins, air sweet with bees
and purple daisies. I
see all her years
come together in the moment of remembering--
savoring
the taste of raspberries
Pub. 1994 Looking Out the Window 1994 Anthology, The Writer's Place
THE INHERITANCE
You were
sent to French shores at 21
a dentist serving your country
fixing the
horrors of ammunition
trained in healing not in war
Your son flew over Japanese shores
the only one to carry on your
name
shooting pictures not enemies
flying reconnaissance diving
low in
the nose of an unarmed plane
No one saw you cry when they came
to the door to tell you
"missing-in-action"
no one could imagine your pain of not knowing
living
with his portrait and medallions
framed upon the cherrywood coffee table.
Your first-born grandson flew to Southeast Asia
you fought back tears he
fought back Viet Cong
and lived in the stench of burning flesh and wasted
life.
Today your first great-grandchild was born
I hug Crisco-slick newborn
warm
on my tummy and feel a chill
"It's a boy"
Copyright Annette
Grunseth 1997
JASON AT 23
He hums along,
days and nights passing him by,
a car on a cross country
trip,
all the windows closed.
Pub. May 1993 Word of Mouth Stevens
Point, WI