HORROR Poem: STRAWBERRIES FOR HARVEST, by Anya Vaiman

Besides the grassy knoll and sun-lit auditorium
She fed you, chocolate draped
Little strawberries
Picked from your grandma’s garden.

She’d croon to the babies,
Feed them fleshy mess from her
Marbled fingertips,
Stained from cocaine and cigarette ashes
(From the early 70’s addiction)

After school, she’d drive you home
Eyes wrinkled, kindly, bright like
Candle against burned fruit and
Your father’s dullest promise.

There was strawberry pie for
Ms. Polly’s third grade class,
Potatoes freshly sliced for school
With a loving knife pressed
Against grandma’s gnarly teeth.

She chain smoked,
Waiting for your classmates to make room
For your little body in the sea.

She’d call your father in whispered tones,
Pink manicure wrapped like wire
Around the cord and your neck
Twisted sideways, gently, she examined.

She baby-sat Ms. Polly in the 70’s.
They’d share joints
Behind the school auditorium
And lick blood-red sugar
From each other’s lips.
Now from yours.

And that’s your grandma.
The strongest tide, crashing to the beach

Waiting, calmly, for your little body
To make it out of the sea.

Seeded and bloody,
Her sweetest harvest