Tuesday Poem: ‘Growing Up’ by Michelle Elvy

 

 

 Growing Up

 

Eat the whole apple

to the core

even past it,

seeds and all…

You’ll live forever, said Grandpa Ben

And I believed him when

I was ten

 

He was living proof  —

ate his apples to the core

and died when he was

onehundredandfour

I recall a lifetime of useful truths

like

 

chocolate is great but sex is better

Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain will change your life

 

and

 

Your girl is always the best

 

So we ate our apples with great care,

my brother and me. But last year

he died at thirty-three, a bitter rotten

thing to swallow. And I wondered:

Grandpa maybe was a liar

after all

 

But I pour a whisky for my girl and me

on a midnight porch with nothing but fireflies

and the mournful meanderings of Miles

Davis.  And I know now, Grandpa Ben

didn’t lie, he just got the one

about apples wrong.

*

This poem was first published in the new issue of Blackmail Press (bmp 33, found here). What a good thing to be included in for National Poetry Day.

*

For more Tuesday Poems, go here.