Grandparents
Laura Sanger
Thoughts of my grandparents
Always born on the scent
Of banana muffins baking
Risign like mushrooms from their tins.
My grandparents like over-ripe peaches
Loose skin softened by hard years
These children now crippled
By stiff, chalky bones
By the constant protest of
Resentful joints
Reluctant muscles.
Within the fitful sleep of
The very young and old
They dream beyond the stale confines
Of wheezing walls (bearing still the
Hieroglyphics of my infant father)
Beneath hooded lids they sleeping-see
Brittle, yellowed visions like
Old projector reels or age-stained books
These dog-eared dreams
Of youthful decadence
Being blind-sided by new love
By great, rending loss
Then they still knew
They would be young forever
With lithe bodies, exhuberant spirits
Theirs the pride and defiance known
By those who see a life of unknowns
Stretched before them
And they cannot see the road's end.
But gradually, imperceptibly
Their bodies betrayed them…
Gave up and gave out
Somewhere along the way
The sundresses and lipstick
Cocky Derbies and smart neckties
Withered to elastic waistbands
And at night, no longer feeling
The entrapment of their life-weary bodies
Their dreams are sweetened by the
Best and brightest of days gone by.
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