My Grandma Told Stories or Cautionary Tales

Grandma Thelma told me if I slept on my back

a hag would ride me and I’d never return, so I trained

my body to sleep on my stomach. Even now,

if I wake up cold, I open my mouth

and repeat the 23rd Psalm.

Grandma Thelma told me I might see a plat-eye

when I was seven years old. I could imagine

cypress knees growing full bodies

to walk the hungry road, an entire body

of eye nicknamed Plat.

Grandma Thelma told me I’d feel welcomed by the eye.

I’d be made to feel safe and loved,

but if I looked directly into that big white-bodied cornea,

I’d forget where I came from.

I’d be disappeared.