my grandmother scrawls a poem,
thin uncertain lines: tomatoes, basil, salt—
oh, how she could open her
self like a downward dog & flower
hibiscus instructions I long to read,
pathways to buds that taste only
bitter assonance—that craft, those stanzas,
how they break—
how memory touches us, how we touch memory
fractures like the mug she shattered fell & once,
I microwaved her gold-rimmed teacup,
lightning storm of synapses & blue veins, tender,
misfiring words I watched as she erased
one daring bon mot for another, image laid on image
as she stopped
blooming, as her writing hand
trembled—as her writing
trembled.
