The quickest way to remember your smoke-strained voice
is to run your trainwreck phrase over in my mind:
“Oh-my-goodness-sakes-a-living-what-a-howdy-do.”
You were trochaic and archaic long before my heart
had any beat of its own.

I still see myself in you. You took a crash
to the hip-breaking floor and shook it off
as one might a toestub. Admirable grit,
but I wonder if it passed with your times.

Ifs saturate the air, maybe the weather change,
Maybe the coffee I poured thick black for the frugal
Dame with her granddaughters. If you were here:

I’d prod you until I knew your deepest beliefs
About the Kennedys—you’d never give it to me
straight, your mouth-pucker in this picture tells me so.
I’d apologize for death-thumbing the countertop ant
Colony you defensively claimed as your own. I’d
Base my entire writing career on your slightest
Suggestion. I’d read to you, over and over,
Until my voice dried out or you needed another pack
Of cigarettes. I’d pick your bony body up bearstyle
every time college let me go home to you. All these episodes
wouldn’t have been canceled if you hadn’t been
stroked under, struck mute, and stuck with the use
of only half a face. If I had known how to love
you right I would have read at your hospital bed.

Every boy deserves a grandmother
with habits as eccentric as yours. I’d like to see
you trim your chinmole with thin, light tru-cut
snippers one last time, or take your trash out back
to burn it, egg- and milk-carton fumes rising to heaven
from a dozen of your match-flames.
You gave me my earliest incense.
Health aside, I cannot help hold all the second-hand
fumes that surrounded you in esteem, albeit reserved
with the knowledge of how they crushed your infamously
sharp tongue before I had the chance to know its secrets.

written on 2006-06-28 at 7:29 a.m.