May 2014
For My Mother On Her Birthday A Poem by Your Daughter
When I turned 23 I started eating half a grapefruit every morning. My mother eats half a grapefruit every morning. The grapefruit comes in a big pink mesh bag and it is called “Not Your Mother’s Grapefruit.” When I turned 24 I joined a women’s book club; we meet monthly. My mother is in a women’s book club; they meet monthly. The book club is kind, opinionated and it is called “Not Your Mother’s Book Club.” And I want to ask the other grapefruit eaters, lady readers just what’s so bad about my mother? After all, She’s the one who taught me how to cut right through the middle of the orb, how to free the tiny fractured triangles from their calcium prisons. She’s the one who taught me how to transcend time, space, and geography, how to devour books voraciously and imagine worlds wildly.
But if I could add a bit more of (the tiny gestures of humongous love given so readily or the laugh that makes her eyes water; her “brr rabbits” on winter mornings or her turkey chili on winter nights; the dappled shade on a water-colored stream or an ability to wear large hats; toe-tapping in the kitchen while singing maybe not so in-tune or heaps of good advice offered gently) a bit more of my mother to my self with every fragment of fruit and every peel of page You best believe I would. Because grapefruit eaters, lady readers — Clearly my mother is “Not Your Mother” — Adrienne Anderson
These grapefruit eaters, lady readers they buck and shy from the idea of their mothers they twist and turn simple things into frantic departures
Adrienne Anderson, a native of Southern Pines, lives and works in Durham. She enjoys flattering her mother, farmers’ markets, front porches, and poetry (not necessarily in that order). PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �May 2014
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