Good Luck + Grannies
Poems by Sarah Taylor-Foltz
Good Luck
I can see four-leafed clovers in the grass because
I have magic in my blood.
My parents would say it’s because
we were Irish before we were American.
But I know when school
concealed the knife in a cloak of milk, mystery meat, and graham crackers
sat us all in neat little rows
then went about murdering the magic of the other children,
severing it from them before they realized what was happening—
I slipped mine into my pocket—
fed her bits of bread and Emily Dickinson
when she was hungry.
For years we did that
fed each other, kept each other alive.
She is still with me
because I refused to let her die.
Grannies
There is nothing brief about briefs.
Cotton hugging your buns,
the softness of knowing:
briefs have got you covered.
People call them “granny panties”
with a scoff and a wrinkled nose.
Full coverage underpants are undesirable,
gross and unsexy, worn by unfortunate, homely women.
You can turn up your nose,
let your stomach churn,
but the fact remains: your sweet dimpled bottom,
and your pretty pink pussy will be fortunate, lucky to get old.
When I think of my granny’s panties,
I think of White Shoulders perfume, a plastic shower cap,
talcum powder patted on with a poof, and vitamin E oil.
Nothing undesirable, nothing gross about that.
Pale blue protection from my waist
down my behind,
with nothing poking out.
Underwear that knows what’s right.
Bigger is sometimes better
and though we have been conditioned
to think of grannies as gross,
where would we be without them?
As you scorn the granny panty,
remember that your body
is the result of something
that took place in your granny’s panties.
That is part of what makes them extraordinary.
Briefs hold you and you take them for granted.
They might poke a bit out of your waistband,
a small embarrassment, because they love you.
There’s a garden in my grannies.
A full bush blooming, rich with a history that I honor.
Holding me as my buns grow flat,
lips thick with stories.
Sarah Taylor-Foltz is an MFA candidate at Wilson College and a teacher of English. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Prometheus Dreaming, Rogue Agent, Quail Bell, Moria, and Mookychick. When she is not teaching or writing, she paints, upcycles thrifted clothes, hikes, and hangs out with her large brood of rescue animals. She often wonders whether she is a good witch or a bad witch.