Poetry
Grampa Orrin Toni Manning
He believed in suspenders, white T-shirts, trousers. Every day he wore the same with navy or gray for color. He'd speak in ice cracking English, words cascading a Norwegian tongue. He'd dip Copenhagen, not say much, retract the puck he kept hidden in side pockets, legs crossed. He'd smile, offer some chew. It smelled nice, a new bitterness to my tongue at six. But as for taste, my cheeks hung as rusted hubcaps. He laughed, I spat. I watched him hold A crumpled paper bag Of peanuts on his lap. He'd take one out, finger the ridges watching cars drive by his house, sneeze a-Raa-ha. He believed in the front porch, the oak tree he planted with Aunt Cookie now housing squirrels he fed-they spiraled to his hand- held out. They'd take the nut, romp their tail, scamper. His neighbors no longer owned houses, but rented along 4th St. He told me. He told me he could once see the Mayo Clinic from here. I asked if they had good sandwiches. He chuckled, handed me a nut. I held it out- the squirrels wouldn't come. He said, Be still, Patient. And when the sky shook down snow, I'd watch the gentle flakes prance the dormant branches. The wind would race around the house, shhh. I'd obey in quiet drift and watch him: the ping of sleet on the pane as sharp as the Rs that clicked his teeth. He'd smile, nod as squirrels wrestled nuts up the slippery bark. I'd get my snowmobile suite, as thick as goose down, root my feet into the legs and branch my arms into the sleeves. I could barely move. The chill cut into my eyes and throat. I'd burrow into my scarf warmed by the hat he tied beneath my neck, the holes he guided my fingers through, the fur-lined boots he zipped. When finished, he hoped I'd used the bathroom. He'd give me a pitcher of water, I molded snow to walls as wind cut and cut deeper. I plodded on, snapped the stalactites from his Ford and forged them to chimneys. After that, I sat back against oak-gloves off-staring at the unmelting intricate flakes at hand I knew he'd hold my cold hands till warm, give me King Oscar tins. He'd eat raw sardines. Not me, I'd crayon the box. Then wait. When he snored, I so quietly, still, and patient, colored his toenails ten different colors. I ate peanuts, watching powder collect on an old branch drop. This is the oldest thing I know. I want to hear and say, Ya.
Toni Manning is an English Ph.D. candidate at UTA and teaches first year composition and creative writing. Her work has been accepted at Curbside Review, Illya's Honey, the first issue of Znine and Can We Have Our Ball Back. She has also received a Ruth Lilly nomination, a first-runner's up award from The Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Contest, and a residence at The Millay Colony for the Arts.
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How To Make A Tortilla Gary Montaņo Take a large bowl and fill it with flour. Sprinkle in some baking powder. Scoop in a handful of shortening. Toss in a pinch of salt. Throw in a smidgen of pepper. Add a birth in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico in 1922. Add a childhood in a shack. Add not knowing where the next tortilla came from. Add leaving school in the eighth or ninth grade. Add the blank of her teenage years. Add my mother, born to her at twenty. Add the Second World War and its uncertainty. Add marrying Gene Guana, late of Yeso and the South Pacific. Add my mother helping with the chores at the age of five or six. Take a move to Clovis in Cold War America. Combine it with my mother's graduation from high school. Add her first grandson's birth in her fortieth year. Add her tutelage of me in the necessities of life. Add her smile, patience, and understanding. Throw in a touch of God and the Virgin Mary. Add some warm water. Put your hands in and roll the masa bout. Grab a bit, pat it into a cake. Take the rolling pin and roll the cake flat. Place on the burner, one side, then the other. Serve warm, with topping of choice, and the love of a grandmother. |
Gary Montaņo is in his second year of doctoral study at UTA. He holds B.S. in Secondary English Education from New Mexico State University, (1985) an M.A. from Middlebury College in Vermont, (1998), and will complete an MLitt degree from Middlebury in the summer of 2004.
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