POEM

Granny Scarecrow

by Anne Stevenson

               Tears flowed at the chapel funeral,
       more beside the grave on the hill. Nevertheless,
                  after the last autumn ploughing,
       they crucified her old flowered print housedress
                               live, on a pole.

             Marjorie and Emily, shortcutting to school,
      used to pass and wave; mostly Gran would wave back
                         Two white Sunday gloves
   flapped good luck from the crossbar; her head's plastic sack
                            would nod, as a rule.

               But when winter arrived her ghost thinned.
      The dress began to look starved in its field of snowcorn.
                         One glove blew off and was lost.
    The other hung blotchy with mould from the hedgerow, torn
                                       by the wind.

                         Emily and Marjorie noticed this.
       Without saying why, they started to avoid the country way
                  through the cornfield. Instead they walked
             from the farm up the road to the stop where they
                                       caught the bus.

                And it caught them. So in time they married.
       Marjorie, divorced, rose high in the catering profession.
               Emily had children and grandchildren, though,
with the farm sold, none found a cross to fit their clothes when
                              Emily and Marjorie died.

 Anne  Stevenson

Born in Cambridge, England, Anne Stevenson moved between the United States and the United Kingdom . . . MORE »

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