ASK ME

Some time when the river is ice, ask me 
about your great-grandmother
and how she dumped a pan of dirty 
dishwater on my grandpa the night 
he got drunk. Or ask me about your 
great uncle Grady, how when he got drunk 
he’d relive the landing at Normandy 
and how his buddy died in his arms.

Or, let me tell you about your second 
cousin twice removed and how she died 
during emergency surgery after a drunk 
driver ran her off the road. Ask me about
your dad and how he drove home one night, 
parked the car in the back yard, but didn’t 
know how he got there.

Ask me about how I survived a night 
with a madman who told me he killed 
his brother, me pregnant with you 
in a big city with no phone and no car,
your father at work, how I snuck out 
when he fell asleep, walked three 
blocks to a pay phone, to later learn 
he didn’t kill anyone; he was only drunk.

Some time when the river is ice, ask me
why 
                                    I wish you wouldn’t drink.

                                    Title and first line borrowed from “Ask Me” by William Stafford

Patricia Hope’s award-winning writing has appeared in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Guideposts’ Blessed by His Love, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Agape Review, Spirit Fire Review, Dog Throat Journal, Southern Writers, The Writer, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Tiny Seed, Pigeon Parade Quarterly, The Mildred Haun Review, Blue Ridge Country, Mature Living, The Gargoylicon, Upper Room, Home Life, The Tennessee Conservationist, Liquid Imagination, American Diversity Report, and many newspapers, magazines, and anthologies. She has edited two poetry anthologies and published two novels, including Lonely Way Back Home (2017). She lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.