Carol Lynn Grellas - two poems

Child in the Distance

I want to remember the days
of being young. Of being
the same height as my mother’s knees.

Of carrying a tub of fruit inside
from the orchard while the sunlight
drown the fallen leaves in gold

and everyone I loved waiting
at the kitchen table; my father
in his fiddleback chair, holding

a gin and tonic and a lit cigarette.
But those aren’t memories anymore,
they’re tiny pages scribbled

in an old diary, after the war,
tucked beside the rules of etiquette
like treasured bibelots. Still,

if I try hard enough to recall the feeling
of being a child, it was for an instant,
a flicker of whimsy; a barrel

of uneaten fruit, the tenderness
of handpicked apple blossoms
pressed against my chest.



The Boyfriend?

I’m the guy who looks prettier than you
who wears Zegna suits and cufflinks
with my initials in gold.

I’ve been told I’m great in bed and that’s
an understatement unless you underline
great in red, then you’d be on the mark.

Here’s my card, it’s white, stark
except for the bold letters spelling
my name. I’m the same asshole you

dated in school who was too cool
to call you back, ask you out for a second
date, or I never showed up, or brought

you home defiantly late, your dad at the door
pacing under the lamplight. He knew my
type with my lopsided grin, and arrogant

chin. Listen I’m the one-night stand
every girl needs to shatter their Pollyanna
heart; I’m a master at the art of being

a dick. I’m a real prick; with a diamond ring
under my tongue. I’m like a ventriloquist
with a thousand quips, I can breathe the words

I Love You out of your very own lips




 Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas lives in the Sierra Foothills. She attended Santa Clara University, where she was an English major. She is an eight-time Pushcart nominee and a five-time Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of several collections of poetry including, “Hasty Notes in No Particular Order”, Aldrich Press, and “Things I Can’t Remember to Forget”, Prolific Press. In 2012 she won the Red Ochre Chapbook contest with her manuscript, “Before I Go to Sleep”. Her latest book, “An Ode to Hope in the Midst of Pandemonium” will be released later this year from Main Street Rag. She is an Editor at The Orchards Poetry Journal and an active member in Sacramento’s, Writers on the Air.  According to family lore, she is a direct descendant to Robert Louis Stevenson,
or at least her mother said so…

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