Grandma used to snack on sweet onions she kept in her purse,
alongside society’s disposables—napkins, bread-bag ties,
safety pins she turned into jewelry, or magazine pictures
she framed with bits of lace that I’d hang on my wall,
next to the rock-band posters, back in the days
when I thought success was measured in fame or money.
She never gave me any advice that I recall,
but she showed me how to knot a thread for sewing,
how to stitch together scraps of worn-out things
into something new and beautiful.
She never told me stories either—her past tucked deep
beneath the wrinkles and stoic laugh as we shared binoculars
and watched the squirrels leap from the trees outside her trailer.
And so it wasn’t until after she was gone
that I learned about the sewing factory and the Hard Times
she fought off with an iron skillet, for a while without electricity—
stitching their clothes by lantern light as the babies slept,
unaware of the coming wars that would mark their lives
the way the current one had marked her own.
She died just as I became a woman, and I set out into the world
with no grandmotherly wisdom to guide me. Or so I thought—
until I stood in the sudden hush of a pandemic sky
and heard her voice, clear and calm in my ear.
“It’s okay, child. Just unravel it and start over—
now you know how to do it right.”
Jess Lee
JESS LEEis an environmental & community advocate drawn to borders, ecotones, and the shadows between the lines. She was raised in the forests of Appalachia and lived for many years in Mexico, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. Her short stories and essays have been published in Cutthroat, Burnt Pine, The Humanist and Z Magazine.