giantess 

i took a daguerreotype of my grandmother
when she was eating carrots 
in her husk. fallopian flute players
& their row boats. when i say
"discover" i mean dig up every root 
of the grass one by one. 
leave the yard as a picked scab.
my grandmother
stood taller than the house &
thin as a toothpick. she bent
holding a wooden life. teeth chiseled 
from a broken bust of persephone. 
her plants how they died. one after the other.
then, her little cat butler
with his ghost up on the ceiling.
he meowed at the cleaning man
& the sitting woman. we try to save 
as much of ourselves as we can. so, 
we cast the fishing line backwards.
there i was & there i was & there i was.
only, all i can see is the purple veined woman
with a shovel for a heart. 
a breeze blows her hair. sheets of
glaciers & violet mornings. knuckles 
like acorns. touching the fins 
of a beached whale & briefly
believing we could all lift it together.
a family is not a thing that does 
but a thing that does itself.
the whale becomes us.
what can't be mended. what stays 
on the spring time beach 
& waits to become a cathedral.
that is where i find her. amoung the dunes.
broken shells. none whole are left.
or they were whole to start.