My grandmother, 8/30/1925 - 3/13/2011:
“C’mon in,” she said
And sat her happy ass down
In a chair that wheezed and groaned under
Her magnificent weight.
“Have I got a story for you?”
She said in that not-questioning
But-telling sort of way that
Americans have of warping their
speech patterns,
And offered me a glass full of iced
liquid preservatives.
I sat, my narrow back pressed
Into the spiny slats of the only
other chair on the porch,
And watched as she adjusted her dentures
Carefully, with her disappearing lips.
Holding back laughter, I choked
On a cube of frozen, polluted water,
Spewing brown bane across the ludicrous
Spread of the afternoon.
Her meaty hand pounded my back.
My skull vibrated with her cackling
and the pounding,
pounding,
pounding on my back.
I spit the ice back into the glass
And coughed twice,
Smiling all the while to show
I was okay and to keep her from
Pounding on me again.
She began her story.
I listened to her voice,
The rhythms and patterns.
The rising and falling.
All so calming that soon I forgot
What was being discussed,
But I remembered to interject
With the occasional “uh-huh”
And “really?” always questioning
When the sound of her voice suggested
That something she was talking about
Was beyond belief.
Or maybe just a lie.
Three hours passed, the sun set
In a blaze of bloody glory.
I couldn’t remember a damn thing
That was said. I felt guilty for
Leaving.
Her pleading eyes begging me for company,
Her yammering mouth driving me away.
I told her I had a thousand errands to run,
More than an exaggerated distortion of the truth,
And I stumbled out the door,
With her following me to my car,
Saying all the while to come back real soon.
And I did. I always did.
Her mouth chattered on,
And I rarely remember what was said.
But I tried to act more than interested
Because the day finally came when
The chattering stopped.
Written By Elysse West
Posted 07/05/12
