Grandmother, Imagined— by Tara Mesalik MacMahon

sometimes just two small stones, eyes of a mother without a mother

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Grandmother, Imagined—

by Tara Mesalik MacMahon

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with her moves in hues of soft blues, 
gathering rainwater in walnut shells for her children 
and her neighbor’s children.

with her voice a smooth, open door,       
music from other rooms, sometimes her voice in cursive,	   
mostly her voice of listening.   

with her teeth of beautiful ruins, 
teeth of mosque and minaret shards, 			 
sweet cardamom pods at the bottom of her tea.  

with her light the first echo of morning,     			
light of inshallah whirling above her head 	       
as shamans dance inside her well.  	  

with her eyes of velvet light and dark, 
the whole lake loop and such beyond itself, yet sometimes
just two small stones, eyes of a mother without a mother.

with her laugh of laughs of hammocks in the tamaracks, 
laugh of sweet date-treats, 
laugh of leaves sweeping wind into the sea.

with her belly a sackcloth of fluffy russets, 
belly of six placentas, six umbilicus,    
belly of doctor’s orders, la ‘akthar.  

with her hair of squishy, squishy-squish,
hair of pumpernickel and sponge, in night mist,         
hair of nest for crows and pickle.

with her hands of sweaty and spittle and tissues, 
and the epistle she opens from her muezzin,           
it’s about the nurses, so few, the sick-folk, so many.     

Grandmother, imagined—with her mouth a tenuous orchid, 
mouth a candle half-lit, half-lost, half-doused?—
mouth of doubts she is not sure of and doubts she is.   

First published in ONLY POEMS (November 2024)