Wake

The day june had to iron Gram's lace curtain

came unexpectedly— stealthy fall,

with the gutters creeping full of rotty

five-fingered leavings, along with a

bower of tufty dandelions that were

Grandma’s wearing confinement

while bending over laundry— not june’s plan

for that autumn, the shaky old sheltie

nipping her heel as she shook out the

lace curtains' webby Irish lace (two months

in the making) with no telltale pricks

of red, not one knot slipshod, june knew that

young, Gram was never still—she sped, she ran

in tennis shoes which june had found, quite filthy

with dust in the photo box, the tea-rose squares

etched mustdardly with faces from the 60’s—

Portland, Salem, ‘Naam, an armchair

with bordeaux wine stains on the armrests, still

sitting, staring, june recalled uncle Dan,

his crowy eyes a shrine in Gram’s old belly

with the eyelets and the hooks, the floes of

Kenmare drifted with the falling

leaves, a window in- between a shadow (lace)

a reflection (leaves), june stood

on the pane slipping hoop over rod.