The death of my grandmother

Written April 2024

Notes: Bummer

My clothes smell like cigarettes.
In the mornings, I round the corner
out of the guest bed and into the hospital
where she is thin and dead.

The big brown reclining chair
that rocks and misses
her as much as her husband,
son and son down,
how the wind rattles the hollow.

My mustard yellow button up,
the couch
the old TV
and the young house,
built with bare hands,
head-hung in Ohio.

What I cannot write is grief,
the pit and the well,
the running water.

Disconnected, my mother’s mother,
dazed at all times.
small in most ways
like a breeze through the house.

Roach beneath the covers,
hot-wet Florida dread
long quiet roads
and snowy finalities.

What I cannot do is compare
a loss too young to that
of clinging desperation,
two worlds of hearts
was I even there?

We held hands around
the table and prayed
shelf of DVDs
mounted deer.

The crow on the stop sign in
the parking lot says
death
and I will cry no more.