GRACE

        "Age is a short word for a long sag,"
        she spat. Then sat in still birth sigh,
        an envelope with wetted chin,
        as words just fit because they do,
        twist a stanza to its close.
        Her hair, a thick mosquito net,
        a shiny silver teapot gray
        undyed by shame,
        soft as tiny cookie crumbs.
        "As you get nearer to a grave,
        your wrinkles gain their passion creases
        penciling some chasm's lip."
        The art of it all bubbling
        in her toothless smile.
        "Blood" she claimed, "is lipstick
        of the perishing peeling off a setting sun."
        I shut my ears to this defeat,
        couldn't let it penetrate.
        Her skin as thin as breakfast crepes.
        I rhyme too much, but so did she.
        Her eyes were marble messages--
        I was a child at the top of the stairs,
        fearing light and wisdom rocks
        would roll and fall and not return.
        Her skeleton a banister
        I'd leaned upon in times of knives.
        Our kinship full of fathoming,
        fish guts of a carnal lot
        disappointed with its view.
        My busy hands were making beds,
        pressing lumps in pillow cubes,
        bothering with minuscule.
        In August heat of knowing
        quickly shrinking hour,
        my mind went back to planting spells.
        The way she dug a hole for roots
        as if they were an artery.
        When she laughed and snorted dirt,
        her nostrils looked like daffodils.

Copyright © Janet I. Buck, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.