The room boasted a lace wedding dress,
turned from age to antique musk;
a washboard perched
in a yawning basin;
a baby doll cradled sightless
in a frilled white bassinet.

Nana liked the baby doll best;
she sifted frail fingers through
its synthetic strands.
She cooed at the thing,
and bothered the nurses into bringing extra cups
of applesauce,
for the little one.

The night after,
I dream of her honeymoon:
her waiflike body, drowned
in tulle, pitched over
my grandfather’s shoulder like
a sack of mulch.

She murmured how she wanted a baby,
a boy to play bam bam with the
television cowboys.
Tonight why don’t we, she slurred
between the ivory clicks of her heels
hanging from wine-softened fingertips.

Sometimes, she sings to me of Ireland,
cups my cheeks like a glass of fresh milk,
and reminds me how my face is just a mirror
time has stilled.

Lord how I want to cradle that sweet head,
run my fingers through the silver,
feed her applesauce by the spoonful,
and tell her of times before.

 

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