my grandmother typed poems out for me,
she was almost 100 years old, and still the women
lashed to the mast, half-naked, screaming in lust
in pain, in poetry from Anamae's imagination

straight to my brain, turning me into a flapper childe
wanting gin and jazz, I did, wanted to wear her skin
even at 6 years old, she knew what she was making of me
Anamae was proud of me, in a way my mother could

never have imagined