Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I’m not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she’s just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it’s snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn’t been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She’s been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn’t do it, put on a red dress.
“The Cure,” by Ginger Andrews, from Hurricane Sisters, Story Line Press.
Words for the Year 
Thanks for kick starting your poetry anthology.
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Thanks for your note, Timothy. I can’t do much in these sad times, but I try to do what I can. I appreciate your kindness!
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Mullygrubs. What a fabulous word.
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Isn’t it?! Reminds me both of “Making Pies” by Patty Griffin (“you can cry or die or just make pies all day… I’m making pies…”) and that fabulous poem by Kim Addonizio “what do women want”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42520/what-do-women-want
A red dress, red lipstick and maybe a red velvet cake or even a cherry pie… anything to shake these mullygrubs.
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Oh yes! Cake and a red dress have long been some of my favorite cures. Baking bread, too. Maybe baking bread the most – especially now when it’s so difficult to find yeast and flour. Makes my human nature crave it even more.
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