My mum
Elizabeth Laura Pollard
Was born
In Brooklyn, New York.
Her mum, a typesetter
Named Alice McNutt Pollard,
Died shortly thereafter
Due to complications
Of childbirth.
These days Alice
Would have been given
Transfusions and a D&C and
She might have lived
To give me oodles of aunties
And uncles.
But not in 1911.
My mum’s dad,
Walton Aubrey Pollard
Was a newspaper reporter…
Who said that with that name
He was destined
To become a writer.
Walton died a couple of years
After his wife
And my mum was whisked away
To Texas and into the
Loving embraces
Of her maternal grandmum,
Elizabeth, after whom
She had been named,
And two aunties
Florence and Mary,
Both as yet unmarried.
The other McNutt
Auntie, Alex, was married
And living in Montana.
All the McNutt women
Were typesetters.
Guess I’m a McNutt
At my core.
~
Toronto
22 Sept 2022
