My grandmother putters around the house,

Quiet, dazed, often confused—

her eyes watery and clouded over.

She’s a shrunken version of her former self,

with a Q-tip shaped head

and mussed gray-white perm,

low hanging breasts like dried apricots,

her bony frame,

half dressed in jeans and a pajama top.

I remember laying my head in her lap as a child

where she sat on the rough, woolish sofa,

exchan...

My little brother wriggled in his seat:

“I gotta go,” he said,

pulling on my dad’s tattooed arm.

My father escorted him to the bathroom stall

at the back of the bus.

I was alone for a few blissful moments

where I read my book

and periodically stared out the window

at the passing scenery.

The Greyhound droned on and on,

eating up the road like a sea snake

drawing water as it slithers through...

The universe knits together the rain

drops outside

like a blanket made of lace,

Can you hear it?

Tiny, joyous cries,

each one a miracle on its own.

If wishes fell like rain,

then certainly I am a storm....

Ocean waves lap up first her feet,

then sinking slowly, the hips, the head—

Long, slick strands of seaweed

wrapping their tendrils around her ankles

as she twists,

struggles a little until

there’s no fight left in her.

The pearls around her neck,

breakaway, bob, dipping in and out

from each crest,

float briefly before they return

to the place they came from.

.

.

.

Submerged....