Distinctly the pad of her hand
the inside of her thumb
tapping like a tambourine
white dust exploding upward
each solid strike
and dare ask
why do you do that Grandma?
She liked wearing an apron,
To make it all smooth and loose
or something like that
she said.
The white powder
was not flour
on my parents' kitchen counter
back then the oven made
TV dinners
better than the microwave.
And as I sift
through the coarse grains
of the collapsed sandcastle
of my own making
where I grew into
adding on and adding on
but built too close
to the tideline-
there was nothing
softer than flakes of carbon and gold
no solid memories endured
the crashing
like white shells
of me.
Painting by Granville Redmond, 'Talk at the beach' c. 1931 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
