in those days there were no color photographs
and so i rely on what my mother
has told me about her and what they used to call her
skin, gray in one black and white prairie shot i have
of my grandmother as a girl
but in real life, full color, i’m told it was
pink-soft
creamy-smooth
i know, at least, that she was ripe
full of not a hardened pit like me
for so long
but hopes that began and ended
seven times over
sometimes i think to myself seven? wow. seven.
and i even think it hushed like a
prayer
for as many as she had to hold
i have marked on my skin as losses
i am no fruit lush and sweet
if i am a fruit just feel like the kind
that falls from the tree smashed and bruised
upon the wet, soiled ground
Amanda Linsmeier is the author of Ditch Flowers and Beach Glass & Other Broken Things. Her writing has been featured in Portage Magazine, Literary Mama, and Brain, Child Magazine. Besides writing Women’s Fiction, she loves reading and writing fables, fairy tales, and fantasy, and sometimes she pretends her Hogwarts letter is still coming. When she’s not writing, she works part-time at her local library and brings home more books than she has time to read. Amanda lives in the countryside, surrounded by trees, with her family, two dogs, and two half-wild cats. For her, writing is the best kind of magic, and her work is heavily influenced by mysterious women, nature, and beautiful images and fueled with lots of iced coffee and background music. She’s the kind of monster who dog-ears book pages, and she has read her favorite book, Beauty by Robin McKinley, probably a hundred times. She loves pizza, tattoos, shopping, and pretty much anything French.
Another beautiful piece….xD.