As for me and my house

we worship at the altar of fresh
cut grass and raucous crows.
Strawberries. Two green pears

on a plate for remembrance,
a practiced hand to hold
the knife. Life. She’s unpredictable.

Wouldn’t you agree? I’ve always wanted

a sister. Someone who knows better

gifted me a daughter. Today

we grocery shopped together.
My house loves take-out spaghetti.

Tonight we fill the fridge, order out.

Parmesan embracing meatballs
like old friends. Small plates of fruit

cubed for a baby’s tongue, those two

new teeth. The crows caw for their dinner

in the same alto as my grandson.

Pasta, Colton! I point to my mouth,

his highchair, the room we’re eating in.

As for the people who love in this house,

no matter where we live, we’ll still say

grace to the same gods. Sustenance.

Survival. Heaps of grated cheese.

My mother is not dead

but, since my father died,

I set an alarm

so I’m awake before the mourning 

call. I know another 5:AM We’re so sorry

is coming. Know I can’t pretend

to miss the message. Or. I can plug my ears.

Lose my phone. Change my name

and number. Say I’m someone

else’s emergency contact.

Some other dead mother’s daughter.

Become grief-invisible.

A thief, or a raccoon. Rummage

through her garbage to taste her sorrow—

unopened sympathy cards, uneaten

dinners. Wine bottles singing

funeral hymns beneath the neat lids

of her trash cans. My mother isn’t dead

and here’s the magic: each night

that I make a mess of her discarded despair

guarantees she’ll stay alive to call me

for one more mother-daughter dump trip.

Please tell us something more about these poems:

”My mother is not dead” explores my preoccupation with losing my mother, or what I have learned has an actual name—anticipatory grief. As I wrote, I became interested in the ways we sometimes try to protect ourselves from heartbreak—through imagination, distance, or even the fantasy of becoming someone else. 

The second poem, “As for me and my house” was written shortly after becoming a grandmother for the first time. I was trying to write more about joy, so I was paying closer attention to ordinary family moments. The poem grew out of a Sunday family dinner, my grandson’s discovery of strawberries, and his laughter every time I tried to teach him to say “strawberry.”

Jill Crammond is the author of the chapbook Handbook for Unwell Mothers (2023). Her poetry has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and appears in Motherhood Anthology (little somethings press), Bending Genres, The Shore, Tinderbox Journal, and elsewhere. She teaches art and preschool at a nature-based school in upstate NY.