I never knew you

as that, only Gram

Who lived on the other side

of the house 

with sprawling double verandas

as if Dorothy's tornado travels

had brought a souvenir

from the deep south

to a dead end street

named after a joke

I see you 

in long flowered 

housecoats tending 

long flower beds

summer afternoons

I see you

sitting in Your chair

at the kitchen table

drinking tea

while we watched your tv

as you most perfectly

would deliver the set up

to our teenaged punch line

     what was he on to pick a name like that

     would you sit that way if a man was in the room

I hear you

hush and scold

with furrowed brows over your watery hazel eyes

as our laughter

echoed too loudly

through the pewter pot

I remember

Your Talking to Moses

Your teetering hiccup-like laugh

Your exasperated “Cappy…”

The separate beds but tales sneaking from one bedroom to the other

The coloring of Easter eggs using onion skins

The iridescent peach and rose Carnival glass 

I never knew you

or what you went through

after I left

The losses you had

of loves and health

and later mind

I only saw pictures of a woman

Once fleshful

dissolve into

the tepid tea of old age

I know despite it all

you were loved

and that is all there is

now left to say

Mary Magill

June 12, 1919 - April 13, 2014