The home, decked out for Christmas
Smells strong of pine, faint of incontinence
And grandmother
Always looking at me
Like I just walked in
The slippers I bought
On her hands
They’re lovely
They’re for your feet
When did you get here?
I have to go.
Stay
I’ve got things.
Things?

And at home home
Or in the car
The earth is spinning
Faster than I can imagine
And I am nowhere certain
And I pull a loose string
Dangling from my sleeve
I pull and pull
Unraveling my shirt
A thread of words drawn
To disclose the naked truth

It's too much
So I wind myself back up
Like a Christmas doll
I see myself tinseled
In the glass of the toy store
And immediately the winding down begins
And I blow my horn of a nose
And the snow is confetti in my eyes
And wherever you are
You are always home
And it is New Year’s Eve
In the shuffle and slosh
I could use some gloves in this wind
Or slippers, I think
I need to buy something, anything
Because the trees are bare now,
And I feel for them
Because the cold is coming on
Because the world is unwinding itself
Toward the same end
Of a new year

And grandma....
There was nothing you could do --
All your stories falling away like leaves.
Leaves... always abundant in Spring
When least we need them.

I abandoned you. I had to.
I couldn't tell us apart...
Like the naked trees I pitied as a child,
I couldn't tell...
You and all the brittle-boned grandmothers,
Blind, prunish, confused,
And badgered by salesmen who act too kind
Not to be cruel, and promise too much familiarity
Not to be strangers
Who pack your shriveled leaves into attic trunks
Where all your life's wisdoms turn to mulch

And they put you here
Where you forget all but your need to escape
Attempts foiled by the nurses who drag you back
And lock you in this
Room, this room so like all the others
From which everything becomes
Inaccessible
Inadequate
In some way
Like the flowers I leave
I love you...
Who you were
Even who've become
You oracle in a dried tongue
It is my future approaching there
In that vacant stare
The dim windows of the home
The cracked door, your mouth
The corners stained red
With pabulum, mushed beets, or maybe cranberries
Your over ambitious pulse
And palsy limbs
Your empty bed
The penultimate visit
Nearly a year now since the last
Invites dreadful speculation
Like a knock at night

Slipping off my shoes
I lie down
I place my arms straight to my sides and converse
With the speechless walls until
Such foolishness renders me an oddity to myself
Notes fall off the page
Even my heart can't hold down its part
Skipping beats, then drumming madly
So I study my wrists...
Blue lodes pulsing with blood
The stuff of islands
The stuff of children
And despite all this, I will have them
If circumstances permit
And I will share with them this language
These words, heirlooms they will wield
Chisels and peens to create of themselves
Such a statue as... you grandmother
Lovely even now,
Though fallen to the quilted ruin of memory
To the marble rubble of lost gods
You, who were betrayed by patrons
As LTC agents chipped souvenirs from your foundation
And grave doctors plundered the dignity from your dying
You, who though toppled, speak without words,
You, who are a priceless stone thrown
Over the river
Through the woods
Safe on the other side, gramma
You are home