Installment #2 of a set of children's poems I wrote a dozen years ago.
The E. T.
Grandmother Gladys and Grandson Todd
Seemed normal in every way:
She knitted him mittens and pompom hats,
And he normally threw them away.BUT . . .
When Todd and his Granny went down to swim
At the beach, when the tide was low,
Todd saw on his grandmother's barefoot feet
An extraterrestrial toe!Her toe number two made a sharp left turn
Where a regular toe wouldn't swerve,
And her toenail was crinkled and squiggly and thin
Like the side of a shell with a curve."Is my grandmother human?" Todd asked himself.
The footprints she left in the sand
Might be signals to orbiting ships—who knew
What the alien forces had planned?"What if my grandmother turns out to be
Pod unit L-52?
What if the toe is in charge of her body,
And she's just the puppet it grew?"So as not to alarm either her or her toe,
Todd asked in an offhand way,
"How come your toe is uniquely shaped?
Or aren’t you allowed to say?"Granny explained to him: "That's the way
Our family's toes are grown.
Your great-uncle Ira's, your father's, your aunt's—
Haven't you noticed your own?"Since Grandmother Gladys was already wet,
Todd took off his shoes to swim.
And there was an extraterrestrial toe—
With an alien toenail—on him!
