The Great Hag
To the hospital I took with me the
nightgown I wrapped around my feet
the winter they told Grandma I had drowned.
Patty, my foster mum, laid into me deep.
My life was grand like an open wound.
The nurses told me about the local fair,
the places they had been. They didn't
ask about me.
I thought of the places I had called home,
the heaviness of my father's hand, breath
spurting out from broken, bleeding lips.
Grandma used to take me for the day,
out to the parks, told me I was born
in the green acres of a valley. She picked
the weeds from the edges, and I sprung up
naked as a flower-stalk.
Every night she brought me back to my
father's house, her age flecked hands
grasping tight what she could not have.
I took with me the birdsong rhythm of her brogue,
tucked it behind my ears. If she didn't live in
a home, she said she'd keep me.
The last time she dropped me off, the front door was locked.
Father peeked through tangled green curtains, pointed for me
to go to the neighbours. A packed suitcase on the stoop. It was
February, I had no socks, and wrapped a nightgown
around my heels, between my toes. He was mad, called
Grandma The Great Hag, said she owed him more.
Numbness set in, like blood rushing home. Snow was
the only thing that happened, until they put me in
foster care and he told Grandma I had drowned in
the river.
I wanted her to know I saw the world flood,
the sadness, and turned to stone. That way,
she wouldn't have to worry about how to
coffin her dead.
