She was 86 the day we sat in the kitchen
that smelled of ghosts, bread crumbs, and old tea.
She held the newspaper over the table,
“Look at that nigger girl.
Isn’t she pretty?”
Outside, spring threw bolts of green against the windows.
But the kitchen was dim, as always;
the drawers around us bulged with rubber bands,
old bolts, nuts, and screws.
That day, she put burned toast
out the kitchen door,
“The birds will be happy;
they don’t get much from me.”
She went to the home at 88—
$60,000 in the bank
and old notes worth some more:
burnt toast-rubber band-bolt-nut-screw money.
At her funeral, Ione, 97 too,
said grandma was the prettiest,
kindest woman she ever knew,
a good friend, generous,
always devoted to others.
I cupped Ione’s cheek
and remembered that newspaper photo.
We lit a candle, “a prayer to the Virgin,” Ione said.
I stared up at the ivory marble statue,
felt the soft warmth that radiated
from Ione’s coffee-colored skin.
