piece of work

my grandmother loved
cigarettes, chained smoked them
like nobody's business.
she loved lamb chops
with mint jelly.
her tea and cinnamon toast.
and liberace
in the morning
with his lace suits
and candelabra.
she liked
billy graham and asked
us to kneel and put
our hands on the black
and white screen
when the callings were
made. she
hated those kennedys,
those rich
bastards on Hyannis port.
she like to buy the paint
by numbers
kits for all of us children,
the ones with the geese
flying over
new England waters,
then critiqued our work,
shaking her head,
saying stay between the lines.
your magenta is running
into your indigo.
she often said excuse
my French
when saying the word
damn or hell which she said
a lot.
when she died of lung
cancer at eighty, my mother
swore that she heard
her laughing, her spirit
present as we sat
around the dinner table
three days
after the funeral.
I didn't hear anything.