Once upon a time
I was widely known
Life was just sublime
I was not in it alone
I grew up in a castle
High above the hills
I existed without hassle
Didn’t stress about the bills
But as I got older
I became weak
I grew colder
My outlook turned so bleak
The couriers came to call
I heard the jesters laugh
My kingdom was to fall
I read my epitaph
“Here lies one who once was great
Through anarchy she was overthrown
Look and see her twisted fate
Destined forever to be alone”
My grandmother died last night. The last grandparent I had. 102 years old- I feel like I only half knew her, the way children only partly see adults. I know these things. She kept her shoes in boxes. Heels in the utility room. The room where my now-gone brother put my arm in the vice on my grandfather’s tool table when I was eight. Where I hid a kitten, Precious, from her. Where she kept her plants. The room with the chalkboard. It was the dust and tools and cool basement air of childhood. Trapped in those tight metal arms, maybe that little girl stayed in that room, even though I left. I left her there. People leave. We leave ourselves.
I saw my grandmother as eternal and constant. She was like the moon who pulls the tides, the apples that fall from trees, the truths that never change. Steadfast, but not completely unwavering, not too harsh, her spirit moved and danced around the edges. The rosary was prayed every night, yes, but my stitches didn’t have to be in perfect little
lines. She liked things just so but had no set recipe for her vinegarettes. Shake in a jar, it will taste ne. Raspberry, mustard, balsamic, whatever.
My mother is like her. She always liked babies and small children the most, and she like them was made for the soft rosiness of childhood. Always struck by the beauty of the world, she traded her paints and pastels for cooking and laundry. She bleeds for life though, the swelling sun and how owers bloom from dirt. My aunt is like her, too, in coee and style. Knowledge is the world. That smooth skill of having perfected the process. My aunt said, “Red is a true neutral,” my grandmother said, “Gemstones should either complement or clash with the outt.” That is their sameness. Only women truly understand that a black and white world births the gray areas which make up life. My uncle and she are the same. They cherish the delicate textures and high quality of nice things made to last, always looking for niches of luxury to slip into as if they were little mice in a cheese shop.
Across all of them, I see the corners of how their eyes wrinkle when amused, especially if they half-disapprove of what you said. They all feel like mother of pearl, or abalone shell. There is an iridescence that is organic and clean. No one feels complicated, March 8th, 2024
even though they are complex. How could I ever make a stranger understand that she taught all of them why one should have bluebirds on the ceiling? She was the classic things- shortbread, hardwood oors, jonquils- that hold timeless comfort. She showed that the best foundations are modest and sentimental, but do not brag of that knowledge. She was too pious to be vain about that quality. Surely. No, I will never truly know who she was as an adult, that will always remain just out of reach, but she taught me to sew, polish silverware, and iron. She let me quietly explore her backyard as I searched for fairies under mushrooms and in the shadows where her violets grew. She never disturbed the tiny acorn tops lled with petals and pebbles- A Catholic who observed the rituals and rites of girlhood magic. She did believe girls should grow up. My mother did not. My aunt, well, she kept the magic regardless of growing up or not. My uncle was always where the world would feel safe and a little less heavy.
So, my grandmother may always be just past what I can understand, what my ngertips can reach, but she echoes in the people I see more clearly. Those echoes sing bright and ne like crystal wine glasses. Authentic, well made, and of high quality. She told me she didn’t want to be forgotten, she told me apple brandy was her favorite spirit, she told me she liked fairytales, too. She remembered Hansel and Gretel. I think of how a priest will say, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
…But we should remember that the ashes were from a re that kept us warm and led us home when night fell. The dust is not only earth lifted by the wind into the air and carried away but also the remnants of the stars in the heavens. It is the beauty of all existence.
We are echoes of the past that never begins or ends, we are her cells divided and shued and redealt—the creases of her eyes, the callouses of her hands. The stars have watched it all, and while departing leaves a space that feels unnatural, she left so much in everyone I love that the space feels less empty. She is less gone. My grandmother will
always linger in blackberry sodas, peace doves, blue couches, and camellia owers
Oh in the garden we once grew
We bloomed together, petals true
I grew beneath the willows shade
And you succumbed to the endless days
And now beneath the crescent moon
The nightshades whisper, left too soon
I shed my skin like autumn leaves
As you turn the path that trust decives
The river next once ran so clear
Is now cluttered with the flowers’ fear
You drift upon the silver stream
A silent shadow shall still beam
The fox, the birds, of the wood
Now follow where no others should
you hold your hate like your kin
A serpent where your heart had been
The wind still speaks its whispered rhymes
And you take all the time that’s mine
In the soil, roots once grew
Now a song, I never knew
Why shouldn’t she help herself, after the way she’d been treated? She had been beaten and battered. Wrecked and ruined.
His fists brustled against his hips. Gently was a word he’d use to describe the way she looked at him. What a fucking pity, what a mess. Her eyes looked past him and into the world behind. The world outside. He knew this.
Her knees were bent on the floor. He was bent on making her get up. Slowly, she rose. First her upper body, then her hands. She reached for him. A step was taken towards her. Not his feet though.
Tears began to fall from his eyes as he grappled with the weight of his actions. His grip on her hands shifted hers to open them up. Rather than praying, she was pleading. Ready to accept anything else he’d give her.
Shame. Shameful. Shameless. He took a hand to trace her slight smile. It was meek and appeared when he dropped himself into her hands. He was around her now, his musk overpowering her strength and she let her hands fall on his back.
How could she smile? So fucking deplorable.
She rested herself on him.
“I… I understand.. You were upset- I get it! It’s okay- don’t cry..”
Whispering with her fawn-like docile voice, she closed herself away from what could be her escape.
But she felt bad. She didn’t know in what way. Whether she was sorrowful for him or for herself.
Perhaps it is best to appease the Dead.
Rotting headstones mark temples and beds
Made weak by time and fate,
But strong in a will to wait.
Asleep, these temples lie in silent peace,
Epitaphs refusing their faded voices cease.
Inscriptions of heroes and saints abound;
Though, are they true to original sound?
Too often do the living perjure the Dead
With remembrances now confused and bled
From a gushing wound called time –
Too large, too quick, the clocktower’s constant chime.
Perhaps we are frightened that honest epitaphs, conducive
In calling her “Absent” and him “Abusive,”
Should awaken the Dead to haunt us like ghosts
Enraged by justice – slithering, screaming spectral toasts.
Yes, perhaps it is best that the living
Appease the Dead – so “Beloved” it is, truth again relenting.
Permanent etchings now manifesting memories,
Marking fallen temples – lies as legacies.
Perhaps it happened because I was small
Fragile as a forgotten doll
Another ghost for an old collection
I was alone and scared
And I remember sleeping early that day
Feeling thin as melting ice
I wasn’t lost but tragically found
Woke up with dirt inside my mouth
I miss you mom
I miss you dad
I’m sorry I left too early
But I still kiss you good night when you let me
And to him
I wish the worst
To drown in guilt
Suffocate
I wish I knew why he took me
And why kept a token of my memory
To him
I wish the worst
Perhaps it happened because I was small
Fear hasn’t seized me yet
newness is burgeoning
forever is tonight
tomorrow is whatever we dream it will be
angels flap as I watch them take flight
up,
up,
up
I see them soar
they call out
asking me to join
I don’t want to leave you
you know that
but something,
something is pulling me up
so release my hand, my love
I’ll be gone come morning
I’m taking off
heading home
but I’ll see you next time around
look up in your despair and consume the sun
bright and blinding
that’s me, my darling
and it’s you, too
warmth, brilliance, strength
I don’t know where I’m going
you know that if I did, I would tell you
though maybe that would be cheating
so,
watch that morning sun rise
bathe in the tender glow
don’t fret when it sets
worry not, darling
for our eyes always adjust to the darkness
where the birds sing by day,
and owls hoot before light,
critters that crawl
summer-bound roaches and geckos,
and spring-fed ants, line up beside the kitchen window
or fly through the hole in the screen door.
There the cat plays and jumps,
Looking for baby squirrels,
While hiding from puppies and children.
(She’ll skedaddle in a second
When the bark and bray break through).
Who is the designer of the world’s most complex game?
One that decides why some must suffer
while others feast in millennia of wealth?
What creator crafts a system so “flawed”
To the human mind?
Yet the moon commands the ocean’s waves,
And who’s to say the droplets in our blood
aren’t guided by its pull?
Life is balanced to the tenth of a degree, yet
What rules govern humanity?
The only certainty we have is death—what a cruel game.
Are we our own grim reapers?
Sowing the seeds of our own demise?
Until our souls meet, shall we both find the answer?
The wind blows, rocking my boy
Swaying from the bough
Take the cloth to cleanse
Fill the basin, spilling out
Just a glance to see you
Watching the cradle fall
Little birds from their nests that fall
To ashes they become, dear boy
But you know this, don’t you?
One with the bough
Krampus demands sins out
Craving more than blood to cleanse
The innermost parts do lashes cleanse
Do righteous men rise when they fall?
From His throne He did not cry out
“Do not lay hands on this boy!”
Like His son on the bough
Though now God won’t take you
Did I fail you?
So eager to cleanse
The clock’s longest bough
But five to fall
My lovely, my boy
My soul pours out
I scream damned spot, out!
Though not availing you
How did I miss this boy?
Pleading Lord this burden do cleanse
No. Instead, I let him fall
Let him swing from the bough
Do I cut you from the bough?
Disrupt your way out
Save you from your fall
Lest Krampus take you
My touch too weak to cleanse
I cry out to the Lord save my boy
He cuts the bough, not for my boy
But out of greed he does cleanse
Our child’s fall. Though I am no mother for you…
