after a century,
it was mine
the book called The Young Wife's Help
gave recipes for johnny cake
cures for garden blight
dates for butchering
remedies for colic
advice on modesty and voice
and hints for dying on the farm
my apple pie was adequate, but
my training lacked in
making up the
proper death bed
luckily, there was a chart
had she known, my grandmother?
the coverings to save the mattress,
layers to spare the down
the words "soiling of the linens after
the beloved has expired"
told me more of fate than Sartre
my grandmother,
a festival of regulations
and the last of hers to live
why didn't she say
"you wet your pants when you die"?
I would have been so careful
in the car and
in the city
and the chances taken would
have been free of strangers
had she watched me,
arrogant in the plum tree,
and remembered moving into rooms
busied with blankets
speaking low,
saying words to send
the boys to draw the
water for the washing?
Copyright 2004 Jody Serey. All Rights Reserved.