By E. Victoria Flynn

Small town curiosity shops hide grandmothers in pieces of
felt, hat pins, antique jewelery made from woven hair, hand sewn lace, lilac
sachets.

Grandmothers with tangled hands and kaleidoscope eyes the
size of herons peak through empty glass pop bottles with heavy, heavy bottoms.
They are the shape of women, the shape of child grandmothers, the shape of before.

My grandmother is a plate of African violets, the tchotchke
red cardinal I chose from a rack, the thick green stem of a prickly pear.

Flea market grandmothers wear high laced boots in need of
button hooks. They are marmalade and lemonade and Band-Aids in a box.

Roadside attractions, they. Pit stops. Bubble gum and exit
signs.

My grandmother is an afghan blanket frayed and unknotting, an
image done in double exposure, a looking glass in need of rebacking.

Zouch