For Grampy

For Grampy

I'm a statue in an oversized sweater, standing quiet in the shadows cast by skeleton-trees. My feet go numb in the crystallized backyard, and frigid snow falls from the shroud-sky, catching in eyelashes and curved lips.

Tonight, or whenever night falls in Las Vegas, you will run out of oxygen in peaceful sleep. 97-year-old lungs will sink slowly, and the one hundred billion neurons in your brain will rapidly fire fragments of memories, flashing like a spotty melange of fading film and fireworks. The thick veins and capillaries under gossamer skin on your hands will lose their hum, and oil-paint layers of crimson in cheeks will fade.

Instead, I will think of you like this: staring at a game of sudoku with blue-eyed wonder, soaking up screen-porch sunlight, you will move your fork to a delicate plate and push through the smooth thickness of key lime pie. You will bring the fork to your smiling lips, savor this tart, Floridian sweetness, and shuffle over to greet me. You will smell like soap and Southern Comfort when you hold me in surprisingly strong arms. I will breathe in the laundered scent of your pressed button-down, and in my head I'll see the soft curves of your signature, spelling out endless I love yous.