Lulu

Last night my grandmother appeared.
I talk to her rarely.
I talk at her.
Usually I've just shown her my tricks,
my knitting,
my singing,
my children.

But last night she sat facing me on the sofa,
her hair a beautiful gray,
glasses with wide black frames that suited her.
She looked right at me. Right at me.
I asked her, "Do you miss the lake?"
Yes, she said. That's what she misses the most.
"Me, too," I said, "I miss that the most." And I cried.
I didn't miss her lake,
but I know now what it meant for her
to be in Maine
away, on her own,

I missed my lake.
I told her I look forward to it and didn't say extremely,
but I felt it.
Like a dancer would show with her arms
and her face.
Urgently.
Intensely.
Longingly.

I was about to say how her lake was so different,
that she was more social than I,
that she seemed to need

people around her,
that she'd call and ask when we were coming.
But the opportunity escaped,
and suddenly my husband's nephew
made his way onto the sofa
in the middle
and smiled
waiting for me to take his picture.
Then my mother was there and my aunt,
all on the sofa.
And I couldn't find her.

Away

The copper and black ribbons

and wisps of hair, unruly

and mingled,

the girls’ fingers intertwined,

nails of shared color,

pink

and chipped,

the sweet softness of their hands

even I

feel

by just looking.

I held. I stroked.

In quiet moments sitting as they now do

sharing whispered moments of memory

and notes of song

near dappled, lapping silver blue glitter of the lake.

Days from then

leave.

Those I held, felt, helped

leave

away

from me.

shoveling snow

As the snow slowed
and the sky moved toward night,

I’d go out with my brother

to help him shovel the pathway from our house,

to help him clear the driveway and the sidewalk.

He used a snow shovel,

I used the brass shovel from the fireplace set,

the one meant for ashes,

Not for snow.

He’d clear a path wide

like my father asked,

not just the width of a shovel

like he wanted to make,

And I would try to help

with the brass shovel

that swiveled,

dropping each scoopful of snow

out of the shovel

back onto the sidewalk.

I’d quit

before crying,

and I’d smooth the snow with my wet mittens

and make a sofa

out of the snowbank

where I could sit

and watch him.

The snow would glitter in the the streetlight,

and we would yell

and wave our arms at the oncoming plow

as it shoved the snow

back into our driveway.