Tag: Barbara Krasner

How to Reconstitute Your Grandmother by Barbara Krasner

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How to Reconstitute Your Grandmother

Set out your biggest soup pot. Preferably one you inherited.
Line the pot with photographs of your grandmother throughout her life.
Add a carton of chicken broth. A parsnip, dill, celery, and carrot.
Add the wick from a Yahrzeit candle and your father’s ripped lapel from her funeral.
Fold in stories, including the rumors, the insults she gave and received.
Sprinkle with salt for the hard times.
Only a pinch of sugar for the good times, because things could always be worse.
Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer overnight.
Skim the fat from the top and let cool. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.
Serve up Grandma anytime.

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Barbara Krasner is a New Jersey-based poet of ten collections, including the ekphrastic Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press, 2025), The Night Watch (Kelsay Books, 2025), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (Dancing Girl Press, 2026), and the forthcoming The Wanderers (Shanti Arts, 2026), and Memory Collector (Kelsay Books, 2027).

My Mother Could Write Lines for Fortune Cookies by Barbara Krasner

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My Mother Could Write Lines for Fortune Cookies

Your father may think you’re a genius.
I know you’re not. #77

You have many outfits that make you look thinner.
What you’re wearing now isn’t one of them. #206

Dye your hair. Go much lighter. #95

You don’t make any mistakes,
but marrying the village idiot?
That was a lollapalooza. #89

Only you have the strength
to withstand divorce. #91a

Only you have the strength
to raise a toddler on your own. #91b

You need more color.
Wear make-up. #86

Dying people always reach
out for their mamas.
You will too. #208

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Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the author of three novels in verse for young readers. Her work has also appeared in Nimrod, Michigan Quarterly Review, Consequence Forum, The Ekphrastic Review, Paterson Literary Review, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in New Jersey.