Trish Saunders- Two Poems

One Day He Just Up And Left:
Remembering Grandpa

Before anyone could call him a bastard,
tell him to comb his hair,
put on a clean shirt,
quit trifling with his Model-T,
insulting the parish priest--
one day he up and left.
Kitchen door sagged a little lower.

First, he tipped his flask for a good slug.
His spine straightened, hands
stopped trembling. He felt taller.
Pebbles shrank under his boots.
He heard crickets,
even a mockingbird,
he thought they'd vanished from Louisiana.
He remembered songs and whistled them.
On he went disturbing the country dust,

and left my father and uncle to starve,
for all he cared. In my one picture still untorn,
grandpa leans against my frail grandma like
she’s a pack mule, he an explorer.
Her back is bent, he grins.
His body turned up eventually, who cares where.
Let the grasses keep him.
Grandmama lies in her gothic
New Orleans tomb
and she is satisfied.



Come On, Let’s Drink From A Glass of Stars

Let’s get smashed on cheap pink wine,

I’m sick of genteel sadness,
I want to wade thigh-high
in dangerous high surf,
shake my bracelets at the sky:
“damn you up there in your
glittering milieu,
what do you know about heartache?

“have you birthed a stillborn child?
lost a son in Normandy?
searched for a missing mother?”

yes, toss the bottle in the air.
I want people to point, to stare.

You sneering comets, nebulae--
come down here,
go toe to toe with me.



Trish Saunders divides her time between Seattle and Honolulu, where she enjoys spying on rare birds.