TAKE MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER, FOR INSTANCE

Take my great grandmother (for instance)
And lift her gently
To the highest window of your mind
For she should be shown
With her Humpty Dumpty body
Whole in the all of herself.

In removing her boots
And the gangrenous toes
They neglected to notice
How once she had run
With six coats on her back
And five children beside her
In the year of the great fire.

Neglected to notice
When they reached her knees
How she had knelt to scour all
She loved into shining.

Neglected to notice
When they reached her thighs
How these had opened wide
To let the heart pop up free.

Neglected to notice how
Her glad young self
Swiftly congealed into old.

But I say
Merci beaucoup, Marie Bercier
I bow to the stumps of your legs and
To the whole of the all of your life!

--Ann Marie Samson



Ann Marie Samson--Bio


It seems I was born with writer’s brain and have been afflicted ever since. In my more ordinary life I am a wife, mother, grandmother, auntie and friend, a gardener, and struggling but aspiring flamenco dancer.

I have been an English teacher and have taught creative writing to people of all ages because I also had the good fortune of working for many years with California Poets in the Schools. My poems have appeared in various anthologies, and in Café Solo, and Mid Air.

My short fiction has appeared in Zyzzyva, Inkwell, and several other literary magazines. Ten or more years ago I took on the project of writing a novel about my Franco American family entitled “Sleeping With Strangers.” Having finished it finally, I still can’t get those family stories out of my head, so I have written some poems including this one to my great grandmother a brave French lady who ran a boarding house in Salem and has filled me with honest to goodness French pride.