paper mache grandfathers. 

my grandfather died when i was
four.
he remains a box of fruit snacks
perched high above the fridge--
the sun bleached baby pool
behind the house--
a cane leaned up against the wall
next to the umbrellas--
i rebuild him
-- my grandfather
becomes three-dimensional
in the paper mache of 
family stories told & told &
told & dipped in paste
until the words bleed into ideas--
my grandfather is a man sitting
in a our house alone
while the doors & windows opened
closed/opened/closed
clattered in the fury tendrils
of the tornado up the street--
& only my grandfather 
would assume death was coming for 
him-- 
he would not run but permitted
a storm to ruffle shingles
around him--
i make him the kind of man
who was not neither ready
nor afraid of death--
he did not go to church but
he said the our father
with a kind of conviction
that turned the words
into a spell--
at night when his sons had left 
he walked up the side stair case 
alone to our attic--
groaned until he could get on 
his knees 
before a wilting card board
box that housed the
remains of his brother--
three purple hearts
& a folded flag--
the bruised lips of 
African Violet-- he is
still sorry & when he picks
them up he pretends that one
of them is his--
in august sometimes he tells
older son that
he wishes he could 
bury himself in one
of the cisterns they found in
the backyard--
his son laughs painfully
because he wants to hide there 
too--
there is something fleeting
about my grandfather--
he keeps death's business
card in his tattered brown
wallet--
he drinks whiskey from
a bottle in his closet--
alone & discrete--
drunk in the blurry
eyes of a moon--
he doesn't get angry like when
he was younger & 
sometimes he wonders where 
it all went--
i wrap his fists in band aides--
he pours a mug of
water over my head
from the kiddie pool--
we lean against the railing
of the side of a navel carrier
off the coast of Brazil
he tells me i shouldn't be
here--
& i explain that it's my
job to write the stories 
that almost never happened--
he's in love with 
an idea of a woman from
both oceans--
my father & my uncle 
were inevitable
but to him i could be astounding--
hair dripping like a sea monster
i rise from the kiddie pool--
from over the bow of the ship
for him to swaddle me 
in a blue towel--
& for a moment he sees
his brother standing 
on the sand of Okinawa--
sea beast rising
from the alien water--
shutters clamoring--
death is an eye of a storm--
he knows not to trust
a tornado 
to do the job 
of august rain.