by Clarinda Harriss
The last time I saw your grandmother cry
was a month before she died. Tears softened
the black pencil under her undimmed eyes
for the Nigerian woman about to be stoned
to death for bearing somebody’s child.
The black running down her cheeks seemed
to say it could be you, or me, about to die.
She’d marked the page in The New York Times.
She was ninety-three. She was so full of salty
juice it overflowed. And so, dear ones, am I.
Next time you cringe to watch me, thickened
and sixty, rosy, blowsy, noisy, too-long-haired,
walk down a street or beach, consider my stride.
I throw myself over my shoulder like a good leather bag
with money, lipstick, peanuts, keys, & The Times inside.