The gap between
the platform &
the train meant
certain death
Granma said. Not this time,
no, of course & maybe
also not the next
but one of these trips to see her only
daughter’s family, soon & then
won’t you feel like monsters?
Mom took her suitcase, we nodded
yes. With Gran in town, it was
no swearing allowed, no
boys, seesaws, and loud voices
were reserved for her daily sacred shrill
devotions to panic
& rage, should she
find me playing tightrope-
walker on the curb, or petting a too
large dog, or letting my face
go under water
at our nextdoor neighbors’ pool. Still
we managed to smile & tiptoe
for however long it took (except once
after she chased me through the garden
with a spatula, Dad said
pack up now, get out) —
or else we’d whisper in the upstairs den
until the sighing died
down in the kitchen, which meant
she’d finally fallen asleep. But all together
on a round flowered rug
we’d sit & sing “Once had a
sweet little doll dear” on rare visits
to Granma’s apartment, or so
at least I always did think — & yet last
week when we went there to divvy her
things: her home, I hardly
knew the place, must’ve been
years & the carpets ran
wall to wall. Beside the bed
was a pink jaw-shaped box
& I remembered how she
never would lock
the bathroom door, how
I learned about dentures one
morning & how awful
her fledgling gums, caught,
prayerful eyes — ghoulish — how small
she was without teeth. & it might
well have been seismic —
the chasm
till Track Number Seven —
from where she pressed
her bag tight &
considered her exit:
it often distorts how depth
& distance are felt — an astro-
cytoma — though we’d
never heard of
such a thing
back then, or of her favorite
sister, Lilibet, who drowned
when they were both girls (in the belly
of that ratty bench, Gran’s original pieces
for piano, all titled
To Lil). & we’re still not sure
if she ever composed the famous
plaint to Amtrak (if so, it passed
unanswered: she would no doubt
have saved their reply) — or in the cupboard
why a chipped
saucer was kept wrapped in linen
alone on a shelf —
or what chinks,
distantly, in her night-
table drawer if you pull at
its porcelain knob; that tiny key must
have vanished, I swear, we looked
everywhere. We tried.
*
I’ve missed you
as a woman misses the last words
of a poorly dubbed film
everyone used to love.
Listen: she’ll
play through the start of the end
credit song, & then she’ll press
rewind, still
all night, still, all night.
*
My mother used to sing me
this song before bed
about a sweet little doll dear
who is the most beautiful
thing in the world
but then she gets lost
in like a field or large meadow. My beautiful
mother’s hair smells like trimmed hedges
& the kind of off-
brand loose cigarettes she
gets from the Chinese
discount if it’s late & all the regular
stores are closed & she sits very
very close & tucks me in so
tight it
hurts but I really
don’t mind & when she’s done
singing she
leans in for a kiss & I see
there’s a hole in her face where
her face should be. & her
arms trotted off by the dogs dear.
