MEMERE
Prompt #75: Invent a Grandparent
Once she stopped a runaway horse before
the horse ran over a little boy. The boy’s
father was so grateful, he got her pregnant.
He set her up in a shack on the edge
of town and paid her every month, enough
to get groceries for herself and my dad.
That grandfather died before I was born,
and I am just as glad.
Memere always had dogs, stray ones she tamed.
She could tell fortunes by watching crows.
I liked visiting her. Dad didn’t mind,
but Mother worried every time.
I used to sleep in her loft
on a feather bed she made.
She taught me how to kill chickens,
how to bait a hook,
how to build a fire with wet wood.
Memere had different names for the stars.
She had three books:
The Oxford Book of English Verse,
My Antonia, and
Moby Dick, which she knew by heart.
She never did believe in God, she said.
What went on in the woods and sky
gave her enough religion to get by.
GladErrand 