Sunday, May 11, 2014

Emilie Spencer Deer


Emilie Spencer Deer

Been chasing a ghost, diamondthroated invalid shade
Shade sheltering our tree-slung swing, grandma dead

Dead all my life, living story to story in Daddy's nights
Nights splitting their sides, grandma the jokester

Jokester rising to moments with song, pun, rhyme spun
Spun see-through silver imaginary grandma, never buried
Buried in Daddy's joy every offbeat scribe I have been.

***

Been naming, renaming the old and the yet to be.
Yet to be outshone, forgotten, you pinch-o'this-that whiz

Whiz bang grandma, golden the floating blanket
Blanket nine granddaughters, two little grandboys, grown without you

You yourself motherless, tiniest, now become ancestral lore
Lore that we spin and gather, launching our own houses
Houses to crouch in, papered in grandma-lore, all we have been. 

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