by Jennifer Kelley
She laid there like an oil slick,
permeating everything.
Stilling life,
smothering joy
with each phrase of babbled
incoherence
that puddled on her lips.
They were cracked.
I noticed that
with my face close enough to feel her breath
on my cheek.
My fingers wrapped around
her withered fist.
Her eyes seemed to clear a fraction
and her voice,
just a little scratchier than it was
when I was five
rasped,
“This,”
rattled breath
“Is just perfect.
This is just,”
rattled breath
“How I wanted it.”
Then I smoothed her hair–
wet and sticky as oil–
and whispered,
“That’s good, Grandma.”
Then I wet my lips on her forehead
pursing my lips at the bitterness of the oil.
I thought of gulls and pelicans
drowning in it,
how wings became useless
against such offenses.
Tracing the bright blue veins under
her paper thin skin,
I knew that, wingless,
I didn’t stand a chance.
“Goodbye,” I spoke softly into the ear with the hearing aid.
“I love you.”
