Grandma’s chin
Perhaps she once held me, examined my blooming bruises
as I fell from the swing set onto that unkind, uneven gravel.
Her songs were healers alone, her words filled the interstices
of my childhood. Lullabies that I still turn to when I run out
of my own stories. But memories are fickle fugitives, eager
to sublimate at the first hint of winter’s wispy cold. Now
with glassy eyes that don’t see beyond her own suffering,
she fails to recognize me. Frail hands with paper-thin translucent
skin quiver over my face, perhaps seeking other unseen bruises,
which don’t hover on the surface. I can only offer my tears
to her infinite sea of love, lashing at me time and again, wake up,
wake up, rise to your potential. Nothing reaches her now – she is left
to bear witness to a world that whizzes by, uncaring of her prayers –
the few she still remembers. But she senses my touch, points to the
errant hairs on her chin, prickly as pine cones, begs me to pluck them.
I am blank-faced, hiding a million regrets, failings. This – I can do.