| On that day last October,
I entered expecting to find nobody home.
A sea of fear and guilt washed away,
as I saw my frail, sweet Granddaddy
watching the longhorns play.
You were so happy to see me.
I'll never forget.
Your hearing, your speech,
your movements all tempered.
But I hugged your neck.
And I told you I loved you.
Even though your brain forgot how to speak the words,
you told me you loved me.
Because you wanted to.
I fell to the floor in a pile of tears.
Somehow I knew it would be the last time.
I'll never forget. |
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| Hug my neck again.
Hug my neck like you did when I was just a little girl,
squeeze me into your stomach and surround me with that smell-
of sweet tobacco and peppermint.
I've been wandering through the snow with bags on my shoes,
and I've sipped the lemonade in the backyard,
rocking with my legs crossed on the swing you built
on the land you bought with the blood of war
and the sweat of the fields.
It's all coming back to me.
The way you gritted your teeth at dinner always vexed me,
but now I would that I could hear it once more.
I'll butter your toast in heaven, Granddaddy.
You won't have to tell me to hold my knife right this time.
I'll find that tape we made,
and you'll regale me of those days on Telephone Road.
I was just a child when your ears left,
and a few years passed since your voice left, too.
But I'm savoring those days,
like the salty tomatoes you'd cut up for supper.
You were the last remnant of childhood,
the days before I understood suffering.
Sitting in that recliner,
you were always so pure and wise and good.
I keep you bottled in this jar,
along with the nets and worms and floaties;
the muses of youth.
I was always a child to you.
Now that you're passed,
I know I'm a child no more. |
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| ...and once the chores were done, and the tea was drank, we sat and thought to ourselves what a waste it all was.
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| The pursuit of sex is the opposite of the pursuit of love. |
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| Remember that everything you knew as a child was correct, and all that you've learned since then is mere self-doubt. |
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