Coffee Black

Like Grandma use to sip

in Deep Dull taste buds waking up early,

to rolled up compression socks

that slide thru house scuff shoes,

Emptying and replacing dishes,

with boxes of unused band aids,

Brown stuff in a mason jar,

fresh still from his last tour of war.

I sit to write,

Wondering where I start from and realize

I'm drinking it black...

now, just like she use to make,

2 scoops of easy sugar,

the good kind...

the kind that Bruce likes to steal

from fancy far away restaurants,

or pull out of worn used pockets,

to sprinkle into something,

that is never quite as good

as what he tends to make at home.

Just two light scoops of sweetner,

Empty fresh From the table that sat before them

Barely dry, just wiped clean

with a disclaimer-

I learned more from her,

Then he'd ever offer,

when she took us in,

on the fold out floor,

green still from where Grandpas chair sits now quiet,

etching dents stained into carpet,

of years past creeping rock sits gone silent,

when he use to fill up the room,

With just the smell of her home cooking,

and his booming larger than life laughter,

Echoing stained on the walls,

just like he used to do,

I never saw her so happy,

As happy as in those burnt edge photos,

showing leg revealed in swimming trunks,

martini in hand,

Ringlet curls, tucked beneath her cap, A horse,

Many outside laughing in folding chairs,

How much fun had they had,

when he was back fresh from the war,

What little ever did she want,

Just him? no other,

reeling in that long fat fish to fry

Other than her Schmutzy,

come back home she wrote,

salaciously he replied subtle flirtation in coded words

They had two children,

in a different time,

growing up next door,

or right down the block.

Never moving too far and wanting that much,

Did she ever travel,

Was a family all they had sought to have.

They had the China,

which plated heaps of a full Christmas dinner,

With the extended table for children's worn bruised knees,

The laughter filled,

his booming bellows,

I was too young to remember that full warm house.

The first time around-

Until we moved back,

And he was gone,

A constant battle, of what

temp it should be.

But she had HBO and every soda,

boundless choices,

what a gift to be able to give.

She took us in,

and loved us so,

Even though our feline transplant Katie was banished to the pickling cellar,

Where I uncorked old jars,

and dusty booze,

It all seemed like a basement of props,

tucked among her neatly kept papers

Tax returns from 1963.

I lived down there in a Flash Dance freedom,

where next door boys peeked thru the dusty windows

as I faked my best Mariah Carey.

Never a singer or dancer by practice you see-

but the dreams I had, to set myself free.

From from the next door house.

Light lift from the father that left us,

the one or the other, who never quite knew,

Never either versed well quite of how to have us,

We moved so much farther than she did next door.

And now all I want is the comfort of that worn out rug,

and the jingle of her cabinet,

busting full, of the dusty rose china,

flush up to the dining room table that held us all on Sundays dinners,

and comfortable bridge nights,

before Aunt Gert died.

The dents on the house where her cadillac hit,

always a surprise that it was still there.

A new scratch doorway,

wondering where that could've come from.

I miss my grandmas tables,

that were always filled with warm bread,

and heaps of macaroni salad,

and an option for egg or tuna sandwich.

The overflowing drawer of medication empty bottles

I never knew what she'd taken them for.

Old lipstick I tried on,

that tasted kind of dusty,

Probably there from when Karl used to kiss her.

I am the youngest of her offsprings offspring,

and along with with me next

her memory floats

on rippled waters

I've put down and out all I have left here to offer,

silently i sit with my last dull worn pencil

too short still to sharpen once more

and scared to use for fear this story will

break it down from pressure

& use

in time

all over,

again,

and again,

and again.