Potatoes

Grandma, Mom, and I

I think about my grandma as I bite into a potato chip

The same potato that was in her diet of vodka while she struggled as a single mother

As long as her two kids got to eat, the potatoes were fine enough

 

She was a poet in the sixties

A young teenage girl

I marveled at the climate in her room

Posting things she had written on her wall-carefully we can't mark up the walls

I feel my body is like a poison made up of time

and missed phone calls

The very thing that feeds me when my own mother was a single parent raising two kids

On easy mac, something they're making a 'special' in the cafeteria

The only way she would eat it was with ketchup and mayonaise

I feel sick but I keep my lunch

 

The clash of voices and my grandmother asks how can anyone hear if everyone is screaming?

 

There's an orange where my tea should be

I walked into an open auditorium and spoke to no one

The seats lined up and I rambled about speakers and ambiguity

It was thrilling

It was empty