I try to keep this website focused on poetry, which means that I don’t post all of my cute baby videos or share the details of my son’s potty training here… unless those things appear in a poem. Then they’re fair game. For poets, the line between what is personal and what is professional is never very clear.

On December 23, my Granny, Wanda Faye Henson, passed away. She was my stay-at-home parent, my childhood playmate, and my current friend—the person I most often talked to on the phone. I couldn’t possibly have loved her any more than I do. Sometimes I feel relieved that she’s at peace. Sometimes I can’t breathe. It’s not professional to grieve in public.

Granny is one of the reasons I’m a poet. She helped me write down the first poem I created at age 4 (see Why I Write Poetry). She spent countless hours reading me nursery rhymes and stories. And Granny haunts my poems. Sometimes she’s explicitly named or described, but often she’s in the background—a swirl of cigarette smoke, a silent observer.

I had the privilege of reading a poem at her funeral. I chose “Chocolate Gravy,” which was one of the poems that I wrote in my first college poetry class. By the standards of current poetry, it’s too simple, too obvious, too rhymed, too sweet. I probably couldn’t write it today. But I’m glad that my 20-year-old self wrote it so that I could read it a decade later and share it with family and friends when we needed something melodic, soothing, and joyful in its celebration of Granny.

Chocolate Gravy

She dawns before the morning
In a pale pink gown,
In the kitchen starts performing,
Taking pots and pans down.

I wake to the clanking and the clatter
Of the dishes as she swishes
Round the kitchen to the patter
Of her slipper-tile kisses.

She’s a fairy in disguise,
Stirring nectar with her wand,
Measuring only with her eyes,
Magic passed down from her mom.

She butters all the biscuits;
Always serving, always making
Homemade heaven for her family,
Like this favorite: chocolate gravy.

I feel the thick, smooth liquid flow
Over my tongue, bathed with bliss,
Remembering what I already know:
If love has a taste, it is this.