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Daily Deviation
January 1, 2013
Epitaph for an Old Italian Woman by =snurtz The suggester writes, "A deeply personal nonfiction piece that is nevertheless a moving and lovely piece of literature for a public audience. The prose is to-the-point, simple, direct, short. And yet, for all its crispness, it manages to be sweet and sentimental."
Featured by thorns
Suggested by pinballwitch
Literature Text
We walk into the apartment building. The building for old people.
It smells like old people.
We silently take the elevator to the second floor; her room is 205. Mom has the key, so she opens the door. The apartment is so empty. No little old ladies with white hair and a waggling crooked finger.
Empty.
There's still newspaper on the floor by the door. Mom and I remove our shoes and put them on the newspaper, lest her ghost throw shoes at us. Or, maybe, hit us with a broom. She never did it to me, but Mom says she used to.
The pantry is full of food; mostly Fig Newtons. We always brought her Italian cookies when we came to visit, but she'd make us eat them while we were there. We would insist they were for her, but what good were cookies without someone to share them with? Italian cookies, Fig Newtons, and tea.
The cookie jar on the counter is full of tea bags. You could never have Italian cookies and Fig Newtons without tea. Or, coffee, though Mom always said I couldn't have any. Tea with milk and sugar for me. The taste still reminds me of her.
We venture into the bedroom. The bed is made perfectly; the covers don't move, even when we sit on them. I wonder who made the bed. Was it her, or did someone else come and make it after the fact? Did she make it that morning before she fell in the laundry room?
Jesus is staring at us from His cross on the wall. I stare back. He looks sad. I guess I wouldn't feel happy, either, if I were nailed to a cross. He's with her now. I bet He's smiling over her. There's a rosary on the dresser.
Mom is opening the dresser drawers now. The top drawer has no clothes; only pictures. Ninety-five years of pictures. Flower shops, grandchildren, sisters, daughters. A deceased son; he never left home. Died of a stroke nine years before. She found him when she came back from grocery shopping. I still remember her weeping over his grave.
We put the pictures away and get up from the bed; the covers still don't move. I follow Mom into the living room. The new television we bought her sits on top of the old one. She liked the old one; it had the dial to change the channels, but you couldn't get cable on it, and it was so old, too. She didn't like the remote control at first, but she got used to it.
There are pictures everywhere. Almost a century of love and memories on the walls and almost every surface. The glass cabinets are full of trinkets; the key is still in the cabinet door. Mom says I can take something. I take a little plastic elephant, but nothing more. It will go nicely with my collection. I don't even collect elephants, but somehow I got a collection. I just have so many that people think I do, and they give me more.
I guess I did collect this one.
There's a wedding picture on the wall. It's black and white, from seventy years ago. She looked so young and so beautiful. She must have been so happy.
The are albums full of pictures in the drawers here, too. We take some. She won't mind.
I look in the pantry on the way out; the orange juice isn't there. She told me once that she kept it there, and after that, I was always glad I never drank any.
We pick up our shoes from the newspaper and leave, and the apartment is empty once more.
Literature
plumbum
she has a heart of gold
and she, a heart of lead
and she, a heart of uranium.
and they go walking sometimes, the three of them.
gold is confident in her worth,
untarnishable
bought and sold and bought and sold
the virgin whore
and lead behind,
heart heavy in her chest
guilt from bullets
and pride from pipes
and anxiety from irreparable brain damage
and somewhere off to the side treads uranium,
tumors growing,
white skin glowing,
thin frame for a dense core.
Literature
Crayon Child
Younger Me,
still fending off nightmares
with plastic swords
and MONSTER-B-GONE lights.
I was rarely gentle with you.
I blistered our hands with blacktop;
I choked our sandals with mulch.
Yet you remained untouched
by life's failures and faults,
only marred on the skin
by two frolic-scars.
There are seven chin stitches
from a monkey bar mishap,
and three on your upper lip
from disgruntled floor tiles.
But that never halted
your gap-toothed grins.
I fought by your side
during alien invasions,
where broccoli trees swayed
beneath the 1% lowfat Milky Way.
We cradled dirt-stained snowmen
that lasted weeks in the f
Literature
Twenty: I'm afraid I'm growing old
i.
Coupons and sales magazines
have become more than just junk mail
and the holes in my pants
seem more patchable
and I wonder just how much
my sparse jewelry would fetch
if I said I saw the face of Jesus
in the glimmer of my pearls.
ii.
I am beginning to miss the sea I grew up on
so much that I will read bad poetry
just for the mention of a salty ocean breeze.
I feel landlocked and sometimes I'm afraid
that I will never see the world
until I have retired from it.
iii.
Faith says her life is full of asking.
I wish mine were full of answers,
but I too have many questions
and only Time will answer them for me.
iv.
My mothe
Suggested Collections
Featured in Groups
My great-grandmother, Grandma Josie, died on June 10, 2007. She slipped on some water and hurt her hip in the laundry room across from her apartment, and they did surgery; she didn't recover. We lived in Maine at the time, and she lived in Syracuse, New York, so we came back for the funeral. My Nana (her daughter) sent us in to her apartment to see if anything needed to be put in order and to see if we wanted anything before my cousins got there. What I remember most is the still, quiet emptiness of the apartment, and how even though she wasn't there, it still felt like her. This was five years ago now, but I still miss my Grandma Josie like crazy. She was a feisty old woman, and I look forward to seeing her in heaven one day.
Questions for critiquers:
- How is the flow? Where can it be tweaked?
- I was trying to go for a lonely, quiet sort of feel here. How did I do? Can it be improved? How?
- Are there any grammatical/orthographic errors?
- Are the details too personal to be understood, or did I explain them well enough? I wanted the piece to be personal as well as accessible.
Critique: [link]
OHMYGOD A DD I I I I DON'T EVEN OMG
Questions for critiquers:
- How is the flow? Where can it be tweaked?
- I was trying to go for a lonely, quiet sort of feel here. How did I do? Can it be improved? How?
- Are there any grammatical/orthographic errors?
- Are the details too personal to be understood, or did I explain them well enough? I wanted the piece to be personal as well as accessible.
Critique: [link]
OHMYGOD A DD I I I I DON'T EVEN OMG
© 2012 - 2024 snurtz
Comments56
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Overall
Vision Originality Technique ImpactIt is a masterpiece of simplicity. The piece flows very well, and has a lovely smooth feel.
The little ambient things are listed in clever detail that really adds accent to the piece. It is a piece of love, quiet, and nostalgia.
It has motivation/reason, an exemplary technique, and leaves a calm, yet yearning impact. A reader can relate, understand, or simply learn.
I enjoy the technique of 'a simplistic masterpiece' , which I feel is a piece that is full of detailed elements and beauty, but is yet still filled with of a beautiful simplistic character.
This was a good read, thanks <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="
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