Chicago 1972
Frosty glares burn my back
Dominick’s checkout line
Grocery cart proclaimed guilty:
Food stamps don’t cover
My grandmother’s herring
Let them eat bread and water
Whole wheat only
Never cinnamon raisin
Tuna, not herring
Better be generic
How dare she
I work hard so hard so hard
Not fair!
The jar, fish in white sauce
Imported from somewhere
Gran’s Donegal girlhood
Laughter with other maids
The remembering worth empty end-of-month refrigerator
Remembering
Before she crossed the ocean, came here
Then her husband drowned
Working Belmont Harbor docks
Height of Great Depression, four toddlers,
Scrubbing floors, cursing fate
Now old
Social Security pittance
And food stamps
That don’t cover luxuries
Like herring
Or essentials
Like toilet paper
Chicago 1972
I pull out dollars
Not stapled booklet of stamps
Contemplate quitting high school
Working McDonald’s, anywhere
Escape, run grocery gauntlet
Dodge darts of scalding scorn
Diane O’Neill is a lifelong Chicagoan whose career has focused on creative writing and disability rights; she holds degrees from National University and Columbia College and has had essays and poems published, including some in the South Side Weekly.
Proud to call her sister.
insightful, timely
This is a very poignant poem. The connection is immediate.
Nicely done. I was standing in line, behind. I knew the Irish sounds. I knew the feelings of end-of-the-month. I’m Irish. From Donegal, they say. Or Mayo. Or maybe Galway. Who knows where the records are? They are always burned up in the ever-burning church fires. I thank you for the Gran’s memories. [“I’m from Vis.”]