Grandma ate her
grapefruit
over the sink,
taking her
husband’s advice,
saying it kept the
squirts
from messing up the
walls & kitchen table.
And today, from stinging
her jaundiced eyes.
The peel
looking back
at her in kindship.
After grandpa
passed away—
died—she mutters in
tart correction,
she began to devour
everything in
the very same way:
her tuna &
tomato
on a crusty, whole
wheat toast, every
single crumb
caught in the basin,
spaghetti
and the splatter of
its sauce,
washed into her
pipes with Baileys Cream—
both organic, inorganic ;
saving on the drudgery
of dishes, the silence
of wash & dry—
the only living thing
they’d do together—
and now she’s there
between the lines
of blemished blinds,
window that’s
alight
to the evening
world, hunched over
like Quasimodo,
furrowed lips which
stretch
below the chrome
of a dripping
faucet,
one that cleanses all
that’s spilled and
fallen,
one lonely
lamentation
at a time.
Andreas Gripp
March 17, 2025
RF Image
Comments