Picture me when I get too old to chase you down.
On stiff legs
with frightful hair and missing teeth, I
totter out onto the front stoop, waving,
implore one of you passing. See me.
There are fairy tales about old women
living alone,
the empty house, doors swinging open on their hinges,
mice taking over the cupboards.
Years past, like the witch in the candy house, I lured
young Hansels and Gretels with cookies and cups of tea.
Now they are grown, and I stock five spice powders, zaatar,
and extra butter in case they run out. My wicked price
conversation. Even that is work, now, to suck up
their fast-talking lingo through my
thin straw.
Didn't her grandmother make Red Riding Hood's cape?
The one she wore as she skipped
carrying cake and wine to her sick
grandmother?
Never mind about that wolf.
I have made the capes and cakes.
I want you
to come skipping.
My own grandmother tried to crack a joke
from that egg (anguish)
When no one
had called her for a while, she'd telephone
our house
Did you all break your arms?
But I wouldn't like to be the grandmother lying
in bed, bedclothes up around my neck, just
waiting
for girl or wolf or woodsman.
Better to get up,
shoulder my axe─
my arm's not broken─
and hack away
at that fable.

Jean is a 75-year-old grandmother from New Jersey living on a farm in Maine. A retired psychotherapist, she began writing poetry at 70. At 72, she had my first poem published. Her first chapbook, Not All Are Weeping, was released in May of 2023 by Main Street Rag Publishing.
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