For Yia Yia

Let’s you and I soon schedule

A day-trip up that scraggly hill

To where the fog falls like cinder blocks,

And every beautiful thing hangs

past the hazy rocks. 

I’ll grab hummus, and

probably pita bread,

jam it in a canvas bag

cluttered with journals,

and we’ll picnic with the bees

in the fogged and timeless air.

“This is the place” you’ll say,

or maybe we’ll innately know

when the distances in our hearts

start to vibrate like wasp wings.

"Let's Talk, Agapi Mou"

I’ve already scripted and re-rehearsed

all the questions I’ll ask you.

First thing, the worst of them,

was it at all passionless or stinging

to die so completely?

Did life leave like cider dripping

or a silent knife?

Also, tell me which banal joys

you miss the most,

that I might perform them like sacred rituals,

frightfully devout in the gray parts of the day.

Next we’ll discuss

our lives for hours, and our fears

which stretch meanderingly

through all this lovely foolish life

and stupid death.

Tell me how seeing the white houses

along dazzled Greek shores 

stabbed the heart with peppermint

and sang hotly on the eyes.

Spin wild tales of the woman

you had hoped you would be, 

and I will tell you precisely

how you were she.

and don’t forget to describe

dad and Nick as kids,

if your quick mind 

can draw so far back in the fog.

Yia Yia;

Grandmother;

Giver of sweaters and sweet reprimand.

Tell me the everything of life,

As though death were a swift unmasking.

And if you still don’t know, 

perform for me a beautiful lie,

you who performed life so well

and loved the ocean.

I will swear it on your flowered grave,

that there’s days still left

for the both of us. 

For life still hums inside your name,

and falls through the veins

of still-beating hearts like honey.

Finally, Finally I’d ask you

whether I might send a message 

to Papou:

Just tell him I’m sure

it would have been a joy.