Toasty Bits #3

Today’s wonderful crunch comes from esteemed poet, Mary Strong Jackson. Mary’s unique perspective on the world gives her poetry a distinctive flair.  I’m very pleased to be able to share some of her work. Take it away, Mary:

Grandma Didn’t Die In the Corvair

grandmother

wrecked her Corvair

my mother sat on the edge

of a bed and cried

grandma didn’t die

she waited till her

black Irish brows grayed

after she’d wandered town

looking for tiny girls

she thought were lost

stopping at the man who sold cars

to inquire about the girls

he had no arms

but a finger grew from the place his arms

should be

a thalidomide baby    my grandmother said

and I imagined  thalidomide man

holding girls so tiny he curled one finger

around their waists and when he turned

his head he was eye to eye with them

and when he looked forward

they stared at the moles on his neck

and hoped he wouldn’t drop them

now Grandma seems like a dream

offering me gingersnaps

and workbooks to do while

my tonsils shrink

wait long enough and dead people

are dreams you can’t quite grasp

and only remember

when something in the day reminds

like someone says icebox instead of frig

and then your mother is old and dies

and you remember two women

getting old and then they die

though they once

ate brownies and tied their shoes

in the wind

Mary Strong Jackson’s work has appeared in journals and anthologies in the Unites states and England. Mary’s chapter books include, “ “The Never-Ending Poem by the Poets of Everything,” “Witnesses,” “No Buried Dogs,” “Between Door and Frame,” and “Clippings.”  More of her poetry and prose can be found at strongjacksonpoet.wordpress.com. Mary recently moved from the high desert of Santa Fe, NM to the vast green expanses of watery WisconsinMore of her poetry and prose can be found at strongjacksonpoet.wordpress.com.