tea and toast

if I lived to be eighty
the age
my grandmother was when she
succumbed
to lung cancer,
I could close my eyes
and still
remember her voice,
gravel pitched,
the smell of her perfume,
hear the rattle of
the newspaper in her
hand, her nails
hardened by gelatin,
the tea cup, the toast
spread with butter
crunched down by her
lip sticked
teeth.
damn those kennedys
she say, fist to the table,
on a daily basis.
all of them, crooks,
got their money
bootlegging.
and now look them.