Grandma

I can’t tell you the color of the casket

or where she is interred, or even the

once-familiar scent of the altar where she sent us every Sunday.

 

I can’t tell you who cried first, whose

Wail pierced through the air, me or

Jackie or Kimberley or someone else who loved her.

 

I can’t tell you the thoughts of the ten year old that loved her,

The fifteen year old that despised her, or

The twenty three year old that buried her.

 

All I can remember is her face, melted into the

Satin white pillow, devoid of any of the feisty,

Damning gloss of her eyes, that judged and eviscerated.

 

The shrillness of her voice, its timbre no longer

Falling on deaf ears that pretended to obey,

The wrinkled skin of her fingers not knowing if they were caressing or careening.

 

How stiff her body was, almost like an

Effigy, poorly constructed, because her body

Must’ve been lost somewhere else.

 

How I didn’t know this person that lie in front of me,

Yet I cried for her because they told me it was her, and I

Let out every single angry, embarrassed, diminished, barren sob and wail.

 

I wanted her to hear me, whoever was in this casket,

So that she’d rise up and tell me to shut the shit up,

She was trying to watch her Judge Mathis dole out that real.

 

But that absolution never came, and here I was, stuck

Beside this casket, belonging to this woman who might as well have

Carried me for nine months inside her own body, and I didn’t recognize her.

 

No toothless smile, no demand for school supply shopping and

Itchy sweater vest that was sure to incur the wrath of the bigger kids,

Just a toy with no batteries, a glacier that finally returned to the sea.

 


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juicebox

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Felt every word in this one.


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I appreciate you reading it!

by Teej�?; ; Report