for Merry
I loved to sit on that green and white swirled couch,
loved even more to sit on it with my grandmother.
Everything about her was soft. Her wrinkled hands,
her sagging face, her bosom-y body she was forever
trying to slim. Her voice was cloudlike. Her laughter,
fine gauze. And her eyes ever met me with silk-strong love.
Why do I always return to that one afternoon
when she let me sit beside her, reading her poem
after poem, as if she had no garden to tend, no meal
to make, no hymns to practice for Sunday’s service.
Forty years later, in my kitchen, I’m still with her on the couch,
hoping we’ll stay that way just a little longer.