The following piece was previously published by The Westchester Review
Twenty-seven and hog-tied by the wrong love,
I break free.
Friends (having weddings, having babies)
forget to catch me
as I fall backwards,
too busy asking each other:
what is she waiting for?
My grandmother hears my story;
our space of fifty years compressed,
an accordion squeezed
until we are one note.
We flank the kitchen sink,
her glistening, wrinkled hands
rinse a fleshy tomato;
my tanned fingers
brush yesterday’s rose petals,
slightly bruised,
in the windowsill jar.
I stand at the speckled Formica counter,
worn by the rub of her hands on wax paper
sprinkling cheese into meat,
bathing chicken in bread crumbs,
prelude to thousands of dinners
served thousands of nights
on the same plates to my grandfather.
My words slow to a drip, then run dry.
She wipes her hands on the faded mappina1
and tells me
what no diamond-blinded friend would:
“You need to do
what will make you happy.”
Her name was Adele.
She left Italy alone when she was 17.
She said the Rosary every day.
If you asked her what kind of soda she wanted
she’d say, “whatever’s open.”
She lived to ninety-six with her husband.
When I was falling backwards,
She gave me her kitchen chair.
