When Grandma threw her knitting needles
at the nearest orderly
and creaked up from her chair
to the expectant podium,
she was ready to make her authorial debut.
She took the open mic stand
with a copy of her new chapbook,
"Poems I copied when I broke out to Kinkos"
and suddenly I felt like Calliope's grandson:
made to stand watch
while she bathes naked in the river.
All the old folks huddle
over in the reception space.
Crackers, cheese, grapes, chocolate
what poetry could sate these diabetics?
Joshua Gottlieb-Miller has been published in Prairie Margins and Avatar. He was the winner of the 2004 Bethesda Youth Poetry Slam. He is now the poetry editor for Avatar,
St. Mary's College of Maryland's literary magazine. He is a member of
the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Joshua lives in Silver Spring,
Maryland.
