gangster granny

how bright my grandmother’s light is

to speak of death like he is an old friend

she is expecting.

she will have him in for a cup of boiled sugarcane water.

then once they are comfortably on the sofa, her feet dangling off the ground, she will tell him all the stories she’s told me again

and again, except maybe, for one last time.

she will begin with how she is lucky to have survived the war,

then giggle at her ferocity to have spoken her mind in

places where no woman should, grateful to have watched

her tiny people grow into medium sized hearts.

she will definitely show him her small rock gardens,

maybe point out the tiny clay banana trees I gave

her.

in her loose fitting shirt cast over her oblong chest,

she will tell him how life has hurt her in places she

has chosen to hide, but now it is nothing but good to her.

she will smile at the distant voices of her children and

grandchildren leftover, echoing past the hall way.

but i know my grandmother. even if death was

a handsome man with arms like an aged sculptor,

her secrets are safe with me. safe between the lines

of this poem, quietly hidden in subtext.

she will, with a quiver of regret in her fingers,

offer him a pineapple tart she made and tell him to enjoy it.

she will tell him that people beg her for containers

of tarts every year, and he should eat it while it’s hot.

i know my popo. she will watch him eat the tart and

ask him how it tastes. it will be the best tart he has

eaten, I am sure. then she will offer him a container, and

apologise for not giving him more because the rest,

she says, are meant for us.