Grandma always picked red-striped
over pale yellow ripe,
thin-sliced for pie,
and froze some of her apples
for winter when produce was as rare
as a Catholic eating meatloaf on Friday.
She pulled straws from her broom
to test the doneness of cake
and sang hymns to time
what she was baking.
Once she sang herself so close to Jesus
that every cloud had a silver lining
and her ginger snaps got extra crispy.
Grandma had more recipe cards
than liver pills, and I have them now.
They’re tough to follow
because of her hen scratch cursive
and my lack of knowledge
of smidgins and “a pinch”,
but I still like my cookies brittle
and slightly burnt so they hold up
when I dip them in a glass of milk.

Winner of the 2012 Hal Grutzmacher Poetry Award, Jeffrey Johannes co-edited the 2012 Wisconsin Poets Calendar and the winter 2019 issue of Bramble with his wife, Joan. His poems have been published in English Journal, Modern Haiku, Nimrod, Norbert Blei’s Poetry Dispatch, Wisconsin Academy Review, Rosebud, and others.