Grandma's

Not to your grave but to your house I go,

Self-conscious, wary of drawing a neighbor’s glance.

I don’t belong here anymore, I know;

Connections break with time and circumstance.

Yet even from the shadows of the street,

And from the deeper shadow of the years,

I climb the fourteen steps of patched concrete

And through the screen your visage reappears.

I have no memories of you in the grave;

I cannot smell your kitchen in the earth;

Here is where my memories are saved;

Here is where my loving gains rebirth.

I don’t belong here anymore, I see;

But this place will, ‘til death, belong to me.