Jill Crammond
Jill Crammond’s first chapbook, Handbook for Unwell Mothers, was recently published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems and stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Jet Fuel Review, The Shore Poetry, Limp Wrist, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing), and others. She lives in upstate NY and teaches art and preK at a nature-based school.
My mother is an ironing board
her grief flat, covered in thick cotton, sorrow
like scorch marks marring her broad flat frame.
My mother wears grief, calls it pressed polyester pants.
She calls the dry cleaner, inquires about her grief.
You remember, she tells the dial tone, fireman’s blues.
Her voice is stiff, slightly chemical. Says grief
made from wool is too scratchy. Won’t wash dark grief
with light. My mother grieves long after the dryer stops
its hypnotic whirl, its high heat cure.
My mother is red wine on a vinegar spill,
mixed up and bound to leave a stain.
My mother heats her grief in the microwave
after she takes the cat food out, after she pours
another glass of chardonnay, after she calls each stray, Love.
My mother says she’s fine, but today she wore her dead
husband’s suspenders to hold up her wrinkled slacks,
filled his leather helmet with old photos, a handkerchief
and a funeral card, lit a match, set her grief on fire.
