A Letter from My Gran to My Grandpa
by Rachel Glass
It’s been a decade or several millennia
since the apocalypse—
and now,
I hold our love
in the palm of my hand.
Without you, I am so, so tired:
less hurricane, more teacup.
Sometimes, loose threads
find their way to my sleeve–
Mountains find their way
to my front porch,
and I can’t explain how they got there.
I can’t remember your chair
being anything but empty.
It has shrunk to the size of a cup
and your favourite cup has shrunk
to the size of a thimble,
and I can’t explain why.
These days, our girls are so like you:
L– is a crossword clue no one can figure out,
R– talks exclusively in magic tricks,
and P– is so, so brave.
Consider the beginning:
a clumsy wink
and a crooked smile,
an eyelash of a moment.
A Tuesday afternoon
growing into nearly five decades
that belonged only to us.
I went literally insane with remembering.
The doctor called it grief
but nostalgia never tasted so bitter.
In our garden, there is a pile of bricks
where a bridge could
not stretch between us.
Tell me Heaven is
less pearly gates,
more teapot.
You know I won’t come
if there isn’t any tea.
Rachel Glass lives in Scarborough, England and has been writing poetry since she was a teenager. She had poems published by the Poetry Society UK, and her poem “Earth Speak” won first place in the Turn Up The Volume challenge. She has work in the anthology A Pocketful Of Windows (Valley Press) and is working on her debut collection of poems.
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