Alzheimer’s 1
My grandmother decided she was going to die
next month, so locked herself in the basement
for an afternoon, ignored the phone’s bell hammering
in its chest, steamy nests of angel hair cooling
in the sink, the newly skinny Oprah on TV, gasping
at her own miraculous life. Downstairs, she got to work:
named twenty-three boxes after her grandchildren, filled
them with her treasures. Two dozen tarnished forks, garlands
of black roses blossoming up their handles. Waxy bulbous
rutabagas, furrowed as old heads; spools of thread, spools
of wire, worn moccasins. Plastic animals, two of each,
divided into separate arks; a filled-up sketchpad and red
crayons, boxes of them. Mother-of-pearl teacups, shattered
and beautiful as oyster shells, blazing like rainbows.
