Poetry from Zara Hanif

Photo: Morgan Vander Hart

Just Another Dead Grandma Poem

I’m trying to write while trying not to think about last night. I rummage under my desk and try to open a tied grocery bag with two bottles of Rosscato. I want wine before my first class, but I’m too tired to untie the bag without ripping it, and I don’t, I just don’t want to deal with it or anything today.

At some point mom has to clean up the blood or she’s going to wait for me to come home for spring break. I don’t want that, I really don’t want that. I can’t get past seeing her in the snow white bed with light orange stains, her fixed yellow eyes, the swollen puce appendage that was her tongue, and now we have to clean the blood.

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Zara Hanif is a Creative Writing graduate from Rhode Island College. She has art and writing published in Shoreline, Clockwise Cat, Albion Review, Operating System, Red Flag Poetry, and soon in Sheepshead Review. She enjoys writing and drawing about whatever strange concepts come to mind.