“Ole” by Angie Estes (form from Tretheway)
My grandmother wouldn’t
sit near the eel that spit its grease
from the frying pain, said she’d
seen them come back
to life.
My grandmother never learned to
swim, fretting on cruise ships and in
river tubes. She cried when my mother
threw me in a pool without
floaties. At fifteen, we circled a birthday
table. My mother took the ring he
gave her, but closed the box. It’s in her
third shelf, carats still glinting stockings.
He murmured in her ear When the youngest is
eighteen, I’m gone. A joke. Get it?
You have to say Get it? or people don’t, my
sister told me—nineteen, in our
father’s basement. She makes less sense than my
phone, that tells me whore is misspelled.
Should be shore, snore, where, whorl, or whole.
At the bottom, it lists whores.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment