I Called My Grandmother Dolly
because my baby tongue couldn’t
return the darlin’
she wrapped me in.
When I knew her,
she was a narrow face
on a twig body
perfumed with smoke,
rooted in the sagging couch,
legs crossed,
sighing over Oprah.
I wish I could have met her
when she was called Sammy
and made my grandpa
wear the false teeth he vomited,
with Wild Turkey,
over the side of the rotted deck rail,
where the dog named Dog
made them his chew toy,
the woman who fed kitchen-floor pizza
to that whiskey-scented husband
but saved the good slices
for her kids.
In one yellowed polaroid photo,
she is an olive-skinned dancer
in a clean, silver-trimmed cocktail dress,
right hip cocked
in a frozen shimmy,
arms bent at the elbows.
I keep her in that moment
when her half-closed eyes look like mine.
