GRITS GIFTED TO ALLEY CATS

My grandmother was the embodiment of Georgia: the dark and the light: the light reflected in her skin; the dark in the wet, rich soil in the alley behind the house beyond the fig bush.

You write what you know.

Georgia has manifested itself into a woman's form that is always old and never changes.

Our matriarchs worked hard:

They raised their children in the sun hanging wash with bristled clothing pins held in empty bleach bottles.

The sun always meant work.

The skin announced age came before its time.

The skin showed poor matriarchs.

The nourishing mother‘s wrinkles tested time’s astuteness because she knew more than time itself.

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- Miranda McDonald