EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT HER

my mother’s mother is dying slow motion. 
she thinks her father’s skull is in the rock wall 
outside her window, she wishes she’d 
packed her scissors, she’d 
rather not 
say.

i asked what her mother or her 

mother’s mother fed her. rumors of apricot 

thumbprint cookies. i don’t recall.

i ask about the graves all swallowed 

by the Paradise fire.

I’d rather not say.

she does not fit the cookie cutter 

and she does not make cookies.

Al Jazeera on low volume, dead second-cousin/husband’s 

jeans hanging off her hips. all women called “females”

like the flies she tracked in 

the lab. 

the cats collect on the patio. she shows them

saccharine kindness. Keke, Marilyn, unnamed mischief. 

they look back to her, permission to stalk 

the deer. 

burdened by visitors, she rejects chit chat. 

mosquitos smashed to pollen screens. 

considers giving us things: in rations, with stipulations.

stale bread sticks for dinner. painting of a warrior on velvet. 

orange pill bottles full of metal washers, pillow cases

saved for quilts. 

when my mom left home at 15, her mother rathered

not to say. soon she will either die

or keep living, forever. she'd rather not

say.

my mother watches her mother.

blood pooled like smashed rose, her skin stays

the shape of the feeling before

the last.

it’s not about her, she says when i ask.

if she’s taught me anything,

everything is.