I blame you, Grandmother, for the
asparagus.
I steam it tonight in your
kitchen. I remember
the summers you sent me to gather it
from the slope
behind your house, leaning toward
the apple orchard—
Winesap, I think, and Red Delicious,
bitter, green knobs when we
visited.
Snap it at the root, you said,
showing me once—
or twice? Such an innocent,
I didn’t use the basket but held
them
like an Easter bouquet of Blue Bells.
Small pieces for angelic mouths, you
said,
scrubbed them, boiled the fiber
white.
I didn’t know until later
how you ruined their taste with
water and salt
and remember them still as heavenly.
You taught me to believe
in a Providence that would provide—
apple crates sent at summer’s end
applesauce, pies, fritters
an apple a day
to keep the doctor away.
I pardon your reproves
laced with bible verses and hymns
as though Jesus himself came down
to stop me from climbing tractor
beds,
from hiding near the picker’s sheds
where I first saw how crude life
could be.
I forgive you for calling me bad
seed,
for thinking I was something
to be prayed out of.
I sat at your table, still as
marble,
while you painted hope into my
still life.
Between brush strokes you swatted
bees
settling on the honey jar—
Satan made those,
you said.
God wouldn’t create something so nasty.
Grandma, it is your fault
I think your god is small.
If he is the one
who erased my face from your memory
a stranger at your sink,
washing asparagus—
wanting to be
the disappointment
you still remembered.
