Her hands are wrinkled
with knobby knuckles.
She walks with a cane most of the time.
Her silvery-white hair still clings to her head.
She can still read the notes on the page,
the traffic signs,
the handwritten recipes on index cards.
The thing that most obviously remembers her eighty-seven years, though,
is her skin.
It’s thin like silk,
transparent like cellophane,
and sometimes I think I can see through it.
If I squint my eyes up against her papery arms,
I can see people walking around down there.
I see my grandfather at the church picnic,
twenty-five years old and laughing that enormous laugh.
I spot my six-year-old father running up and down her fingers.
He’s wearing a hand-knit sweater,
and screaming something wonderful.
There’s a room that’s packed with people,
four girls and a boy,
all talking at once,
and someone’s playing the piano.
There’s a window that looks out over Chicago.
The Cubs are playing and everyone is wearing blue.
At just the right angle,
I can peer down to the space between her shoulder blades.
It’s an amhiptheatre,
with a beautiful grand piano on its stage.
The whole family is sitting in the audience:
the Birds, the Ellis’, the Hasselbachers,
the Stansfields.
I’m in the front row next to Grandpa,
wearing a green velvet Christmas dress.
We’re all smiling,
and someone is singing something
lovely
that I can’t quite understand.
