Sleep Over by Kim Dower
The sound of water screeching to a boil
reminds me of my grandmother’s
trembling hand pouring her steam-hissing
kettle over the Lipton’s teabag settled
in her white porcelain cup.
Those would be the mornings I’d have slept over
on the pull out in the living room, bundled in flannel,
watching lights from traffic below make angels on the ceiling.
My grandfather would already be out for the day,
picking up a nice brisket, a few carrots, nodding
to shopkeepers on his walk down Broadway, picking
the wrong horses at the corner OTB. He’d only bet ponies
with the same name as one of his daughters, or grandchildren,
a horse with a name that started with “K” or “J,” “S” or “N.”
In the evening I’d watch grownups as if studying another species:
Gretel with her bargains, “I got this sweater for 99 cents!”
Catherine the milliner, hat pins sticking out of the sides of her mouth.
Why did my grandmother hide money in a drawer
under the kitchen table? How was she able
to put her red lipstick on without a mirror, never going
out of the lines? Who was Uncle Joe? Why’d she shriek
at my grandfather when he returned from the store
without the dill after dark because he’d forgotten his way home?
Why did he never say anything back, but just look at me
sitting at the fold out card table where I’d been waiting all day to watch him
rip the cellophane off a new Bicycle deck, break it open, shuffle, “let’s play,”
I’ve got a hand like a foot,” he’d always say.
Art by Tim Kennedy
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