SHAME

It begins with a memory of feet and above

the swollen ankles of Grandma Elizabeth’s leg

cartographic with varicose veins bulbous

and slurring beneath my fingertips as I traced

what I thought was the blue of sorrow lacing

its way like an endless brook through her body

which was a body whose toes I had rubbed one

at a time with lotion to the sound of her

chewing on a peppermint or breathing slow

and hard as I relieved whatever journey

from beneath her feet sour with duty

and the power to make a walk from room to room

into a meal and game of checkers where I learned

that stacking two soldiers made a king

which would become useful later in life

as I found myself building lonesome towers with my body

and another’s while we catalogued our grievances

with the sharing of tongues and here one desire

usurps another but I’ll mend this memory

toward honesty for my grandmother’s feet

knew speed and precision when necessary

to run across the squeaking floor for a broom

to whack the shit out of me if I frightened her

while she exited the bathroom pausing

right as she turned off the bathroom light and let

her fingers linger on the knob just a bit

as though anticipating the boy me’s hunger

to hear her scream with a round soprano

Stupid! You trying to kill me? And here again

the truth stalls because beneath me

on the first floor where her room was a kingdom

of perfumes shawls and jewelry this woman

up and died while I lay in bed on the second floor

right above her and I was sure the chill

I felt was either her passing through the floor

and through me then through the roof

and into the sky where the morning sun was still

cool and from which chickadees dropped their small bodies

into the grass for seeds to pulverize in trees

or it was the angel of my thinking

unblanketing from me my own innocence

knowing that my old lady went

somewhere and left her body behind

to be found by her children and for a moment

I was closest to her just a single story away

meaning the narrative that was the air itself

crawling between my floorboards and her ceiling

was the last thing we shared and no one else

can have that and here the dark bathroom

and the metal doorknob with her fingers placed

on the chilly arc in the darkness is how she

slowly unlocked me from myself like the sun

unlocked from my body its own shadow

and I hated myself for being so unwilling

to let death do what death does and witness

the final days of her hardly sipping water

her lying in bed alone and endlessly tired

and my selfish teenage self is here now

looking up from the cloud of this memory

shaking his head and swearing under his breath

swearing at me even now too shy or too absurd

with shame to run from that old house and into

the distraction of maple tree seeds whirligigging

their papery blades into the weeds and the white

fluff of dandelions and into the street

and scream something about it being too much

or not knowing how to love then so lay the fuck

off me man just lay the fuck off so I must forgive

him who is my earlier self his avoiding that room

his avoiding her eyes yellowed by chemo

his avoiding her feet and his now missing

that cane tapping out the minutes of the day

that now his later self holds in the highest regard

as I lie alone to sleep listening to my downstairs

neighbors make love in their softest voices.