My Mother Asks Me to Write Grandma's Obituary
in sequential order of infinity
To pass [ away ] : 3 point
[ from ] 1
saw her everywhere, today 4
[ into ] 1
my grandma said I’m going to 5
heaven–& I hope I will see you there 9
but I 2
lost sight : when that brightly cool 6
white sky poured through me : 5
my anemic prayers 3
like a hometown strip mall 5
in nowhere, east Tennessee : I wrung out the 8
blinding sky : dripping with I will fear no evil : 9
at pandemic funerals, her Baptist church plays 7
pre-recorded solos : spines to mustard colored pews : like 9
heat lightning in 3
late June : 2
every revelation flashed 3
white : the child-locked backseat window finger-cracked : 8
driving home from VBS : 4
waking early, stumbling to the empty 6
kitchen : dimly 2
lighting my linoleum-cold feet : grandma 6
told me if I 4
could go back, 3
marry your grandfather 3
sooner : I just didn’t know how little time : 8
I climbed the 3
garage roof : 2
toes tucked against the shingles : fell through 7
the fields : flattened my body under the summer rain : 9
promised to love on time 5
[ breath ] 0
winters ago : 2
I turned my grandfather’s Ford tractor into embroidery : 8
it remained hanging on Grandma’s wall until her 8
breath became a scrap 4
: hollowed : 1
& now it costs $450 to put her obituary 9
in the local paper : living is owing : 7
$10,000 1
funerals grieve a body : & hold 6
miles of birds : in unending January : while I walk 9
the cemetery alone : 3
& I never explained myself : waited for a better 9
heaven : with much stronger hands : now, she watches me 9
kiss their swollen 3
boy-lips from a swollen heaven : leaking 7
with our best words : my 5
god : 1
[ breath ] 0
I protected her from the 5
best of me : heirloom tomatoes decayed : her county 8
road crumbled 2
[ breath ] 0
I drained her garden hose all summer : well water 9
dessicated : & husks of tall grasses whip 7
the field toward unfearing : 4
my hearing revises to listening : breath to halcyon breath : 9
how heat lightning strikes 4
her rust-red barn 4
down hill : & I watch 5
as the wood beams catch careful seconds & spark : 9
leaving faded 2
plastic flowers behind 3
[ breath ] 0
my private revelation crests the cemetery : illuminating : 7
whether or not I wake to see it : 8
we 1
love so many people into the 6
past tense : perennial dew 4
[ breath ] 0