I’ll Remember for Us Both

Grandma,
I wish you were just a drive away
So I could see your smile

I’d gladly repeat to you my name
A hundred times
Just to hear your voice

Those summer mornings spent at Hardee’s
Playing bingo
B-15
A memory
Do you still remember in your clouded mind?

I wish to be nine again
Sitting up front in your shiny red Buick
Slowly driving past the salt lick to look for the deer
“Shhhhh,” you’d whisper “I see one.””Quiet now.”

A shimmering day, the crisp tart breeze of Spring
sliding through cracked down windows
The musky odor of the Mississippi gently invading
A mammoth barge glides by as the locks close up and hold the water.
Is this locked in the tunnels of your mind?

When your lock and dams break
and you have moments of lucidity,
“Why Annika, I’ve missed you how are you?”
“I haven’t seen you in so very long!”
You’re still inside, and it’s beauty heaven sent

“Hi I’m Dorothy, What’s your name?”
The moment fleeting and past

If I could be there to touch you,
would you remember my touch?
If I could be there to speak to you,
would the chords of my voice awaken a song in your heart?

Grandma,
I wish you were just a drive away
so I could look upon your face
and remember for both of us all of the love that we’ve shared.