Niagara Falls

Poetry Project  

Jane Urquhart

War Song

 

Grandmother has the devil
in her
big as a woodchuck

rationing has been
imposed
so she

rushes to
the dominion store
to buy up all the sugar

before the hoarders
get it

and there will be sweet tea
on afternoons
set aside for the knitting
of regulation dunkirk socks

knit one pearl
two
sweet tea and gasoline
for each of three hearses

business continues as usual

                    good teeth
                    blue suspenders
                    regulation dunkirk socks
                    fingers on left hand
                    missing

 

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Source: Urquhart, Jane. False Shuffles. Victoria: Press Porcépic, 1982.