Prose and Poetry by Alley Greymond
1967. I am in the nave
with hundreds of children,
singing Onward Christian Soldiers
as earnestly, loud, as on tune as I can
so that the man with the elegant white hair
will set my voice in the grooves—
singing from the Chancel stage
while all the others form my choir.
As he walks among us—
judging—
his robe swishes
like mother’s taffeta gown.
Surely, he sees my uplifted chin,
purposefully staring at the cross,
my pious little body.
Yet, he passes me by.
When we were cleaning out
the last three storage units full
of mother’s hoard
I took a standing jewelry box to contain
the last 39 of 400 necklaces I beaded—
a year-long memorial duplicating
an obsessive-compulsive disorder
I was grateful to have not inherited from my father
and my mother’s childhood doll
tucked away for decades
in a metal trunk alongside hand-carved
doll house furniture we were never allowed to play with.
I have no memory of the doll,
don’t understand its story or significance,
only know that she preserved it for over seventy years
preserved with her wedding shoes
and home sewn dress,
one yearbook, a graduation certificate,
things she considered important
were guarded.
It sits half-fallen over,
the doll face peeling and faded
hair painted on, one arm broken
placed on a shelf with my poppets—
dolls made for spells—and hat pins,
things meant to be handled, mulled-over, mauled
pierced
and if mother had a mobile spirit
I imagine she’d ask
“why don’t you treat it with love?”
After dinner, Mother pulled kitchen chairs
to the sink so one sister could wash dishes
and the other rinse and dry.
When it was my turn to dry I wrapped
one arm around and pulled the serving bowls
into my belly, like clutching a resistant cat.
I ran dishtowels around at least three times,
the dishes still wet.
Dinnerware was slippery in our tiny hands.
It’s not that we never dropped a fork
or a plate, but melamine was durable,
and cheap. It was for family use.
After we all moved out,
Mother replaced it
with mass-produced pottery,
the melamine stored downstairs
in a cupboard next to cups
with the face of Saint Nicholas.
1964 – 1969. Saturdays.
Mother was home, scrubbing—
a linoleum floor, a toilet, tub, two sinks—
wash clothes folded under her knees for pads,
the same Patsy Cline record on repeat.
Daddy drove us three kids to QFC
where he purchased a bag of cracker jacks,
sometimes black vines,
and cashed a check for five dollars.
He dropped us out in front of the Bay Theater.
Laura and I holding hands while Jimmy
got the tickets. With five dollars
there was a handful of change
and Jimmy got to keep it.
Two hours in a theater full of squirming.
When the film lit the room
I looked down the row to see how many others
were temporarily orphaned.
Then Daddy waiting out front; in a car that smelled
of stale beer and cigars, pop songs playing
in the background.
Nothing about these memories is rancid.
Show me something that changes everything.
Not a podcast, but an uninterrupted beat
that obliterates cortisol.
Not a tuning fork struck before bed,
but an even higher-level vibration,
I might activate with a pinch
or a pill. An implant that removes anxiety.
Show me how to rise refreshed.
How to cultivate compassion.
A technology for becoming a better human.
A confirmation bias that builds trust.
I am awake because I have to be awake.
My skillset is still required. I am still employed.
A car alarm is screaming that a car was touched.
The plagues have abated, for now, but will be back shortly,
to resume shaping history—some military victory
or new savior hanging frustrated stage right.
Big Agriculture and Big Pharmaceuticals
are killing so slowly no one notices.
Chicken is still tasty.
Many Americans are remembering 9/11,
the rest are clogging social media
with their own memorials.
We are all drowning in memories.
At least the apocalypse didn’t arrive
and AI has not terminated the population.
In the kitchen, coffee is brewing.
I started a load in the dishwasher, carefully placing
the Highball and wine glasses to survive the spray.
The news is off. I don’t need to see who left us
yesterday.
A morning anxiety attack never did me any good.
I hope you are warm and well-fed food
grown out of your own pesticide-free garden.
I hope you are still asleep, dreaming of childhood.
Prom at the golf club house. What would go on
to be another tribute band. My fiancé flown in
from Texas where he’d moved for college,
after I suggested his best friend as chaperone.
Dress better suited for a church picnic blanket—
red, white check cotton. Everyone else—slinky.
In the photograph his fingers stretched to capacity
more like holding me back than in, wads of tissue
in my fist and purse—always one flu or another,
young enough to dance through it.
I stopped to watch Monica and Julie
climb in through one of the ground floor windows,
willowy and woozy.
Piss and vinegar.
Full of beans.
Money and cocaine.
Statuesque. Regal.
Effortlessness I’d never have.
Monica sauntered over, our first, “hello”.
She reached around, stroked my backside.
Her eyes and face— like a water painting,
exuberance blurring by a furrowing brow,
her mouth turning down, a tilt. Moving off,
like a cat in a cloud.
A gesture I’d remember for decades more fondly
than my fiancé’s abrasive grip.
1978. Ignoring strep throat for nearly a year
I was diagnosed with gangrene in my tonsils.
Admitted to Saint Cabrini Hospital,
I gave myself over to the surgical care of a doctor
who wore an imperial mustache
and a ducktail beard,
who had hooked me up to a therapeutic inhaler
every office visit for no reason I can think of
and so far, had touched me inappropriately twice.
I submitted to the designs of caring nurses
and prayer from the Missionary Sisters
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
I’d gone under anesthesia as a high soprano
and rose as a tenor. My voice
unrecognizable to the few friends I telephoned.
My friend, Colin visited, and I think he glimpsed my butt
peeping out the back of my gown, blankets
kicked off. I was in too much pain to care.
For a solid month I let ice shards melt
down my throat
until I could handle the jars of baby food.
I swore I’d henceforth pay more attention to my health,
but I didn’t. Not finding out I was pregnant
until the fifth month. Stubbed toes infected.
Depression. Fatigue. Something other than myself
holding my attention.
In hindsight, what did we have in common?
The early eighties, I was in my Evangelical phase,
praising or condoning in every sentence,
throwing—not the first, but certainly the second stone.
At the jewelry counter Lonnie asked me
to demonstrate how I put on my eye liner.
Was his line thin enough? He wanted
enhancement, not ridicule.
I complimented his technique
though I asked
why a perfectly beautiful male
would wear makeup.
Lonnie and I gossiped in Accessories,
visited in Men’s where we discussed
the lack of quality in the raw linen,
sat together for lunch in the breakroom
where I’d lament my conflictions
working retail.
A fledgling model, he gave me a photo
from his latest portfolio. Stunning,
and an overt line under his eyes.
After work he walked me
to Seafirst Tower where my fiancé worked,
until my fiancé’s rudeness drove Lonnie away.
So many overlooked details.
Morning walk.
Wet boots left near the door,
my coat slung across the shower bar.
I run a towel through my hair.
I no longer miss having to towel off
all 120 pounds of Lab Zeus.
It has been 20 years
since he muzzled-jabbed me awake.
The tea kettle isn’t going to whistle.
Instead, there will be a quiet pop.
If anyone else lived here, they would appreciate that
almost as much as I do. The quiet.
The lap blanket. The chenille robe. Slippers.
Coffee and another good book,
the news in the background
like an underscore in a parody,
ads for an updated iPhone, smart watches,
and bundled insurance.
Brash. Unwanted. Like timpani
next to one’s head during sleep.
I mute the television volume, avert my eyes
until I’m certain the news has moved on.
Today, another day I won’t talk with family or friends.
I have never looked closely enough
at their ranklement, brewing like daily coffee.
4 a.m. again
and I don’t even lift the curtains.
No visible stars, just streetlamps—
one street framed as the world
lined with cars, shadows
in harsh angles,
last night’s leaves on the ground
and sometimes a person
who should be home in bed—
the tension of their presence.
6/14/2026 (c)
adding dried flowers
and pink cardstock.
Hours.
It took hours to soak, to beat
with a hand mixer.
Then pouring and
shaking the mush
over a framed screen
like panning for gold.
Days to dry.
I tried heating the mash with a blow-dryer
and then in the oven—
tinged the petals
and at last,
a heavy texture
that refused the ink,
impossible to fold,
tampered paper that lost all
it’s paper essence.
5/11/26 (c)
Measuring my worth in cups
is not as tangible as it first seemed.
I use a dry cup for the bones,
a liquid cup for the blood,
measuring spoons for eyes and teeth.
I think I am accurate.
Discrepancies pile up.
The sum of my parts
is less than the whole
All my better parts are weightless
and lack the volume to measure.
I need to find a scale I cannot tip.
5/11/26 (c)
Sometimes I set a fire
just to set a fire.
I take someone’s lunch
from the community fridge
eat it at my desk.
When the notes go up
to quit stealing lunches—
I tape trolling signs beneath it—
It wasn’t that tasty anyway.
I keep that part of my life
anonymous.
I need fellow warriors
to fight beside me.
It’s a thrill—
to flex, to fume,
to throw opinions around—
what needs to change,
who has to go.
Alone, I am just cruel.
Together, we call it justice.
5/11/26 (c)
I draw a hot bath.
Turn screens off.
Essential oil in the diffuser.
Soft jazz in the background.
Returning to a good book,
I wait for my mind
to loosen its teeth.
The only thing missing
is a black cat’s company.
5/10/2026 (c)
On the Monday my father died
three strangers reminded me to smile.
Behind a wire fence
you stubbed out a cigarette
like you were killing a roach or trust.
Hey, smile lady.
Why grieve—
it’s a woman’s obligation
to improve the scenery.
Barista, you paused before frothing cream—
you’d be prettier if you smiled.
There it is. I got it—
from the executive suite.
That day I felt freed
of my father’s body shaming:
fat girl, hips too fat, thighs too thick
ugly face—don’t cry!
No man likes a sad woman.
His shaming—but not yours.
I’d rather read alone at the bar
than
hear unsolicited advice
and poorly executed pick-up lines.
Calamari intrigues more
than your touch ever could.
I remember
you wouldn’t hire me.
Over-qualified—
your clients couldn’t accept a woman.
Mediocrity is the white noise
behind business.
When you promoted me
for less than the man
before me—
and after.
They had families to support.
My daughter counted
as little as me.
When I threatened to sue—
unless you quit asking for blowjobs,
stop pressing me against
the walk-in freezer
to bite my earlobe,
You molested me at 7,
raped me at 21,
and again at 56.
Age did not protect me.
Was it good for you?
Single American men,
on the day my father died
my duty to love any man died.
Draft from 2015, FINALLY deep edited. 5/8/2026 (c)
For Art T
1.
I waited six thousand miles
and twenty-four years for your birth
to some other mother.
With every one of my five miscarriages
my womb emptied
unformed and inert pieces of you.
I seek to enfold you
in rich endometrium mulch—
delay the final push
as you wrench free—
silence
where there should be screaming.
There will never be a natural birth
between us.
2.
Drowning americanos in the coffee shop
you spoke about your childhood in Yerevan—
haunted by a century-old genocide.
You were lyrical about Inanna
and pre-Hellenistic goddesses—
heady describing
Communism’s collapse—
insurrection is your pornography.
You were twenty-four years younger.
So much knowledge,
you even corrected my English.
3.
Abruptly
you kissed me.
Our nose posts clinked together
like a flamenco dancer’s castanets,
a precise, complicated rhythm
one had to live to know.
I inhaled your exhale, lavishly,
slow as savoring champagne, your exhale—
the only air worth breathing.
And for a moment, I thought,
maybe I can do this again.
4.
When you found me
I was storing fat
like an American black bear
preparing for hibernation,
an aging mammalian alchemist
no longer cultivating milk.
Little remained
of the desires rising
behind stalagmites—
this want so sudden, unexpected—
it felt violent.
I am too old for colostrum,
milk gone thin—
I am a fraud of a mother.
With you, what else could I be?
5.
You traversed continents
and wherever you tarried
mothers surfaced—
mini-mothers, mothers-to-be,
monotremes, marsupials,
wounded women
hooked by the chance
to nurture,
to be in your narrative.
I am not the only mother
to tongue-trace
your indecipherable map of ink—
to touch the steel-filled,
the empty piercings
scattered like initiation wounds
from a tribe existing only
in your imagination—
I am not the only mother to think
I could thread them all
with fish wire
and tether you to my skin
connecting us
in a resplendent amalgam of pain.
I was never the only mother
to molest and exalt you.
6.
I tell you—
You are the gist of all my memories.
Every recollection holds you—.
we are two incoherent stories
that merge into a whole.
I tell you—
I was in the shadows at your birth
I watched your naivety break.
It was not my place, not my skill set,
not my doing or undoing
to move you from fugue to joy.
Yet I am but a ghost
of your mother
crossing through.
5/9/26 (c)
I step away.
My city apartment becomes
a mountain retreat in dead winter—
Gaia’s womb
where I gestate
listening beneath
the surrounding chatter.
5/9/26 (c)
I remember
brushing off the dirt,
rubbing my knees, crying,
then standing.
My friend survived leg bone cancer—
for a decade now
has limped, a cane for balance.
Another, wheelchair bound,
removes prosthetic legs
at the bar for comfort.
A single misstep can set me back two years.
Together, we stand
though we do not easily stand.
