Today, under fluorescent lights,
I have my grandmother’s eyelids.
Bumpy, flaky, itchy
like a sunburn starting to heal.
At the office,
opinions are offered,
various potions tried and applied.
Solutions to securing suppleness.
What is sapping us?
I thought life had made grandma’s eyelids
wrinkled, discolored sags.
Daughter of the rural poor.
Employee of the cannery.
Wife of the junior-high dropout,
who always resented the fact.
Mother of children who grew
to move out and up,
of an eldest whose own daughters favored
the other grandma.
Florence, never Flo,
obese and ordinary.
Loved through an act of will,
until death made it moot.
Now, in the reflection
of the upper eyelid just
below the right eyebrow
I see the resemblance.
Currently, Laura Felleman is an accountant at the University of Iowa. Before that, she was a seminary professor. Prior to that, she was a pastor. She moved to Iowa City with her husband in 2016 and started writing poetry soon afterwards. In order to learn this new craft, Laura attends the Free Generative Writing Workshops and participates in local poetry readings.
Sparks of Calliope 