139. Grandma’s

Dust is everywhere;
so is dog hair, cat hair, granny hair.
Old monochromatic photographs,
black and white, rest beside giraffes;
dollar-store dolphins on the mantle
complete the odd ensemble.

Orotund, magnanimous reminders
of a foreign past of hers
finds stasis in this irony:
grandiose relics in harmony
with cheap trinkets,
purchased as tourists do from over-eager merchants.

As if to eradicate
longings for another place,
they are placed, souvenirs,
living with the present, ghosts, for fear
that memory is not enough, that
physical mementos are evermore more apt;

Rummaging through this
strange apartment, it is
odd to feel small
in the magnitude of
such frailty.

Everything here feels
disembodied and disconnected.
Stories of the “old country”
flit in and out of my
head as I finger aimlessly
though album leaves,
eyeing hopelessly
the digital clock on the
stainless steel
microwave.

I am almost powerless as I
realize I am in a shrine to
my past,
our past,
locked in a bygone
identity housed in
another which
makes even
less
sense.

I am trying to care, but
I am confused.