Strange Brew
A poem by Julia R. DeStefano
Strange Brew
They called my ancestors fixers, healers,
those come to help.
Sicilian women — we knew the land because we had to.
Some chose a different word.
Derogatory for the time and horribly untrue.
But grandmother had a little secret for eternal love.
And one night, as I melted into a woe is me puddle,
she shared it with her mini-me.
How to keep it if you ever find it
or if it finds you.
Like she’s held on to grandfather through his passing.
Frequent trips to the mausoleum.
Seven years now.
She’s a Rose, like me.
Crafting the same long-winded sentences.
Sparing no detail to uncover the formula.
Magic, truth, and a sprinkle of mischief.
The risk that isn’t really a risk
if the love is there.
“Because we don’t get to come back,” she speaks firmly.
Certainty in her voice you dare not question.
Ingredients that inform the cocoons of my writing
and keep me blossoming anew like the phoenix.
Everything carries more weight when she says it.
So, I started to think —
me, the little word witch playing in her sandbox of verse.
Gingerly stroking ideas that enthrall me.
Straddling worlds I don’t understand that call me.
And if I have any magic at all
it’s my art and the way that I love.
The spirit that dances behind my eyes that only he can see.
The way I feel things so deeply.
My sorrow and my hope.
Magic, truth, and a sprinkle of mischief —
the secret for eternal love.
In other words, just being
me.
© Julia R. DeStefano
