grandmother

Poem by Emily Dynes // Photograph by Lais Azevedo

grandmother

i think of your wedding dress

soft and flaking like old tobacco papers

hanging in a suburban cupboard somewhere

you bled for a hand you never held

you wept a river you never saw

you speak to me with sagacious lips

as you tell me of the trees that had to fall

so that i might walk this forest

and kiss the girl i love beneath the leaves

stories of sorrows, salacities

the violet murmur of kurinji bushes

you speak to me and i think of soil

of flower pressings between pages

of lamps burnt atop escritoires

of stolen glances, pale thighs

of church walls that had to crumble

of lovers that were touched and turned away

all so that i might stand in your blood

and taste mountains