Granny

My Grandmother’s eyes are speckled
Like a trout.
But fish-like she is not.
Feline a better word to describe the curve of her hair,
The neatness of her.
But she smiles in a way that is not a cat.
She is her own creature.

I see the gaping depths of what I cannot know in everyone I love.
But the unknown in her is an ocean.
I tuck each scrap she shares of her life into my pocket.
Fold it neatly in tissue paper where it can be kept safe.
Preserved.
In a way that she cannot be.

She is the only one who understands
Fully understands
How slow I need to go.
She gently jokes that she won’t have to live
In this manic world much longer.
I complain that “I do.”
And she squeezes my knee.

Not naturally maternal
Her affection is always genuine.
When she tells me she loves me
It is not perfunctory.

“Emma, there aren’t enough thinking people in the world.”