My Grandmother’s House

by Deborah J. Hunter — Tue, 31 May 2022 07:01:14 +0000

My grandmother’s house was made of
strong, black coffee cooked in white enamel
on gas burners lit with sturdy kitchen matches
of some unnamed wood with magical sulfur heads
that sparked blue and yellow flame and smelled like a sneeze.

It was made of
grape Nehi in returnable bottles,
Quaker Oats, evaporated milk,
pork chops and red eye gravy,
beets picked and pickled by hand,
cracklin’ bread and buttermilk,
wrestling match Saturdays and
Mahalia Jackson Sundays.

She decorated it with
peace roses
hens and chicks
portulacas
and zinnias.

Pictures on the walls
held up the house:
Jesus with children at his feet,
Jesus at the table of his last supper,
Jesus in the upper room with flaming tongues,
Jesus lingering on the cross;
all the Jesuses with anemic skin and azure eyes
declaring salvation comes from a white man.

I learned,
a brown girl with braids and bow legs,
in the house my grandmother made.
I learned to doubt.

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My Grandmother’s House