No More Grandma Poems By Yolanda Wisher

they said 
forget your grandma
these american letters
don’t need no more 
grandma poems
but i said 
the grandmas are 
our first poetic forms
the first haiku 
was a grandma 
& so too 
the first sonnet
the first blues
the first praise song 
therefore
every poem 
is a grandmother 
a womb that has ended 
& is still expanding 
a daughter that is 
rhetorically aging 
& retroactively living
every poem 
is your grandma
& you miss her
wouldn’t mind 
seeing her again
even just 
for a moment 
in the realm of spirit
in the realm 
of possibilities 
where poems 
share blood 
& spit & exist 
on chromosomal 
planes of particularity 
where poems 
are strangers
turned sistren 
not easily shook 
or forgotten