nana gave me cash
for gas--bless her heart--and still
i spent half on Pabst

time to say goodbye, they say
ten years and counting—
eleven after May

you never get over the loved ones you lose
the pain just fades a little,
like the bump leaving the bruise

you're a scar on my broken heart,
permanent and painful
but i love you like art

time to say goodbye, they said
nearly eleven years
nana, why'd you have to be dead?

they told me to move on so gouge out my eyes,
I'm tired of being subjected
to seeing a world where you're not alive

the way the sunlight comes in through the kitchen window
is my favorite shade of yellow

i saw it when mémé sat me in her sink
and we ate raspberries
i shoved them on the tips of my fingers
and stained them red for a week
i could catch the yellow in my hand

i saw it when mémé shook her head
because tes madeleines sont pas assez cuit
and i rolled my eyes and assured her
i was not going to be a housewife anyway
i could feel it warm my arm

i saw it when mémé giggled
as she snuck me a bottle of wine
i cut my hand trying to open it
and hid it in a shoebox under my bed
i could feel the glimmer on my cheek

i saw it when mémé cried
as she held my chin in her hand
she said being fearless and daring are a bad mix
and it also runs in the family
and i could feel the rays reach across my collar

i see it when i think of mémé
i am no housewife
i struggle open a bottle of wine
and i have a bad mix of hereditary characteristics
mes madeleines sont toujours pas assez cuit
i can catch the yellow in my hand

Cover the sun with lace
from your dead
grandmother’s attic and
watch dusty patterns
dance over the sequined
Mary Janes that she wore
to her senior prom and
your mother’s first
wedding.

When my grandmother dies,
I hope they fill her casket with flowers.
So that the last time we see her,
she is nestled in amongst
the delicate feathered petals of mountain bluet
haloed by the bright yellow of birdsfoot
the length
of her soft
decaying body
is caressed by the long stalks of bottle brush
and bog candle
so that we can imagine her,
splayed out in a warm field
on the outskirts of St Johns
laughing in the sunlight
the weight
of such a long life,
of mothering so many children,
melting away
into the warm red soil.

I hope the service
is held in a small white church
with all the windows thrown open;
the clear air and the sunlight
tumbling down onto our heads,
onto her lightly clasped hands,
onto her soft  lips...

I hope they read poems for her
play light happy songs for her
I hope
everyone remembers to tell her
they love her.
I will ask,
that they bury her somewhere
with a good view of the stars,
lay her to rest where the wind
blows the smell of the ocean over her,
and she can admire the sunrise
under the arms of a gentle Alder.

I hope we remember
that she has loved
so deeply
that she has laughed
and lost
and been so unbearably human
all of her life
even when she has been quiet
even as she has cared for us.

I hope we remember
what a resilient woman she is
but also how tender.
How new she once was,
to love
and to it’s touch.

And when I
am someone’s grandmother
I hope they remember
that even I,
was once somebody’s lover.

I sit and hold my grandmother
in the shape of a small pillow on my bed -
they turned the dress she used to wear
into covers for all of my family's grief
and all of human need for things to stay close.
Her dress matches my bedsheets,
so it seems almost too fitting for her to be here.
I know grandmothers are grandmothers,
but they've always been people before that,
and maybe pillows afterwards.
I have a lot to do before I die,
and a lot more people will probably know me
and at least a few more people will probably love me,
and I don't wear a lot of dresses but,
I hope I will compliment the color scheme of your bedspread someday. I hope I will fit as easily into your life as a she fit into mine.

I arrive, weary, weak, wonderous
Daily work of a woman, it seems
It's not over, never over...

She sits in her spot,
beneath the shine of the evening sun.
A deep inhale, soft expulsion of my sanity.

I smile into her glare, a calm resolute
To the coming war.
Her eyes like daggers enflaming every flaw.
Of those things entombed within,
That bite, scratch, and gnaw.

And oh how my skin does crawl!
Oh how I yearn for the day to dance upon her in celebration of a life well lived...
Well over.

I love her, in all her 90 ways
I love her much more on her better days

Yet my heart can be fooled
When her monsterous drool
Exudes from her voice
As nails on a chalkboard
Giving me no choice

Her songs of songbirds
Vultures to my fate

You see, sweet little flower lady
Seems tame, makes me to blame
A crazed woman, who only has me
to suffer the sins that she has carried.

I always loved my grandmother
As most young boys do
She held me tight
Singing in her terrible voice
Sharing her world with me
I still recall peeling fresh apples
As we mixed and mashed for pie

When age overcame her,
When her body betrayed her,
When I was not there
When wounds are eternally fresh

Age came for me too,
With it, a swell of dark secrets
Ones of devils, so close to home
I wondered, what person could dwell
With family, in a home, here in hell
A grandafather I never knew, forked tongue
And perversions in the brain
His grave forgotten, while his scars remained

Perhaps she did the best she could
Turning a blind eye against a fiend
But as closed doors reveal themselves
A twisting vine of hate creeps and crawls
Sinking its roots in memories skewed
In rose colored glasses, as I unshaken gaze
Into the endless ripples of repercussions