She tucked me into
bed,
wrapped me in
an age-worn quilt
and I slept like the baby
I nearly was.
When I woke,
I pulled the quilt
around me
and tiptoed across
the old wood floors
covered with braided rugs.
Rubbing sleep from my
eyes,
I entered the kitchen
and watched her
sitting at the farm table,
with a cup of
steaming coffee, slicing a wild peach.
Her hands were still strong
then;
and even now I never
see a peach,
smell one, taste one,
without thinking of
her.
She laughed, her
mellow way, eyes crinkling,
when I said how much
I liked the sweetness
but not the fuzzy skin
which poked
like a prickly
moustache against my mouth.
Overheard her saying,
later
that she ‘got tickled’
when I’d said the
pigs rooting in the pen
looked like they had
ribbons in their tails.
When I’d trailed her
to the rabbit cages
and saw a mama rabbit
eat her own baby
she didn’t shield me
from the horror of it,
but let me ask the
hard questions
and answered them, best
she knew.
‘Fascinating’ is what
I’d called it,
when asked about it back
home.
And she was, too,
though I never said it.
Except at the cemetery
overlooking the river
when I wished her
back
to see me enjoy the
sweetness in my life,
to bring lightness
when it poked;
and because the
questions
have only gotten
harder.
But mostly, to hear
her ‘tickled’ laughter
one more time.
Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner
For Grandma. Rest in peace, we so often rested in yours.
