The Grandmother Poem

Hello stranger,
it's been a while.
Too long, I know
you're busy.

Sit down,
stay a while.
Eat something,
just stay.

Put down your phone
or whatever that is.
Folks can't  stand
still anymore.

Now everything needs
a name, an angle
changing every
other minute.

Not like when I was
a young poem,
a rose, the moon,
even death would do.

Yes, I know,
you need to go.
Take one with you.
You never eat.

I'll just be here,
knitting time
'till you return
or not.

Challenges of Parenting

I was barelegged with you in a field this morning.
You couldn't have been a day past five. 
It was I who helped you navigate the long grass,

the dips in the soft, unseen turf,

you who found the ripe blackberries,

spread across your face like war paint.

Or was it your high school?
You walked off the grounds for the last time,
a sheet of paper pressed between leather 
under your arm as your  books always were,

I wore a simple floral top and black slacks,

a proud smile that just wouldn't come off.

I can’t recall. But no matter.

It's 4 o'clock , another sunny Monday, 

that day after Thursday,

when that kind young man
who looks so much like you

always brings warm apple pie

just the way I like it. 

He should smile more often.

T'es Où?

That's all I heard for 10 minutes straight
one sautéed Brussels morning in the metro
with everyone, their brother, perhaps their dog
peeing on my leg, or at least, it felt that way,
sweat running down inside my trousers

and this one woman who refused to shut up,
pink phone clutched in glittery talons,
cheap earrings swaying in time with her hand
and three offspring exploring the car like raccoons
in my trash, threading through my legs, drooling.

"T'es Où?"
"Where are you?"
as they say in London

Who could say? Possibilities abound.
Prague is nice this time of year.
The local department store had an ad,
two-for-one socks, today only.
North Korea's not half bad.

"T'es Où?"

Not here, obviously, being brighter
and more fortunate than I, who is here,
who can hear you, who wishes he couldn't ,
who wishes North Korean visas
were easier to acquire.

"T'es Où?"

was the last thing I heard, her voice,
her odour, her brood, trailing out the door
into the baked street above, where she
may still be looking for that person's hiding spot,
her children sniffing trees in her wake.