The Babushka

I bet you Kratos couldn’t

open this pickle

jar. As if it had been

fastened by cement.

I lament the fact if I 

can’t get to the gherkins,

what’s a little old lady

supposed to do?

The bag in the box of Apple Smacks

refuses to be pried. The glue from

a thousand steeds. Considering what

it’s doing to my obliques, it's a

GoodLife all its own.

What’s a little old lady

supposed to do?

The can opener’s called in

sick. Every single canine’s

chipped or broke. It’s as useful

as Gums McGoo.

I pity all the Dorothys in the world.

They’ve vacuum sealed the salmon—

like Christ with a Roman guard.

The scissors & the

knives have chickened out—

no one wants a hernia

so who can blame them?

I’ll send a morse

to Musée d’Orsay, plead

for a guillotine.

What’s a little old lady

supposed to do?

You say I must care madly

for “little old ladies.” Envision

their slow starvation although

abutted by a billion jars—

like a shelter

beneath Megiddo, legumes

for the end of the world.

Mavis lives upstairs, and judging

by the rumpus seeping

through the popcorn

ceiling, I think I might have

undershot her might:

shearing off a bottle

with her dentures;

thawing a puck-hard steak

with just the fever

of her breath;

and the Polskie Ogórki?

There’s no fortress

Bick’s can build

by which to thwart her

voracious hands—biceps like

Ferrigno; abs on which she

does her Tuesday wash;

and nails the shape of

talons—that she’ll use

on Yaroslav Grüt—

amid a quarrel on the

way she’s shucking maize,

its mess on his rocking

chair;

or during a night of

deviant love, divulging

through her grunts

what she desires.

Andreas Gripp

March 26, 2026

RF Photo