Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas

Girl, I Remember You from What Seems a Lifetime Ago
 
While dressed in oyster-white oxfords
and stripped pinafores, we were taught to tally
blessings in light of all misfortune−
 
day lessons from nuns who tried to guide
us through the art of bending without breaking;
comparing us to the beautiful greenheart tree
 
and its vulnerable nature; easily splintered to
fragments if handled incorrectly; as a fragile
heart might simply burst from the strain of
 
too much ache; miniature parts splayed over
a classroom or human wreckage of what once
was. Poor, untiring Sister Katherine with her strict
 
and determined fingers draped around the bible,
all that mess she’d have to deal with−a Godsend
to girls with naughtiness on their minds who dared
 
dream of gormandizing on pomegranates or behaving
as immature as goslings on the loose, always aware
of a soon to be gravamen regarding such gluttonous
 
behavior. I remember the way she scolded me for illegal
gum chewing during Geography, as if the devil himself
had taken over my soul and placed something vile
 
inside, or the ‘you need to be strong’ stare she gave
me after my father died, handing over a glass rosary;
my consolation prize for having to grieve, as if reciting
 
a row of Hail Mary’s would bring me back from being
bowed way too far.
 
 
 
 
Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is a six-time Pushcart nominee and a 2010 Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of seven chapbooks with her latest collection of poems: Epistemology of an Odd Girl, forthcoming from March Street Press. She lives in the High Country, near the base of the Sierra Foothills. According to family lore, she is a direct descendent of Robert Louis Stevenson.
 
 
 
 
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