My grandmother was wide-built
and heavy. Would answer every insult
with a blast from a mouth that hardly
stopped talking. Once I fell asleep
on her lap and dreamt I possessed
all the wisdom she’d forgotten.
It didn’t last. Now I remember her
in the living room, combing her hair,
checking in the mirror if that thin
grey-pale string was all. “It used
to be so long. And rich! I would coil
it twice around my head. People thought
it wasn’t real.” Seventeen I was and
school and speech training –to educate
away my accent– had left me without
an answer. I smelled the oil-stove
in her kitchen. She always simmered
the stringiest beef to an unbelievable
tenderness I have never tasted since.