Morning Glory

You and your mother

(Your hand nestled in hers
Like grandfather’s photograph
Safe in your silver locket)
Sliced through the
Window-shopping passersby
Who smelled of baked goods:
The crackling of sourdough loaves
Or the rich sweetness of heavy cakes

—Like the earthy whisper of pipe tobacco

On your grandfather’s jacket
As he plucked you from the lawn,
Clutched your elfin hands,
And shot you into orbit
Around the dying sun
As you dreamed of Amelia Earhart
Subsisting on lipstick in the Gobi desert
Just as he told you she had,
When you asked
Grandpa, did Miss Amelia really crash
Into the Atlantic
Like teacher said she did?

Today was Grandpa’s birthday,

And you beamed
As you scribbled your spriggy signature
Onto his birthday card
While mommy conceded
Tightly wadded dollar-bills
To the puffing pastry chef.

Pressed against the display case,

Your dinner-plate eyes
Gobbled up the rainbow-speckled treats
Even as your mother pried you away
And strode toward the house
You and the white-frosted cake in tow
With Happy Birthday Grandpa!
Etched in black
As if on a granite slab.
II

Grandpa had always told you

The rain was the angels
Crying for un-baptized souls
Crying for the little children
Who clutched moldy bread
Between sooty fingers

III

You’d always thought it would rain at Grandpa’s funeral,

But the sun beat down that summer day
As they lowered his rigid white corpse
Into the earth
—Into the ashen clay.

The body wore his wedding-day tuxedo

With ivory pipe bitten
Between tobacco-stained teeth.

The blue-gray eyes looked so empty,

And as the pulleys inched him into oblivion
You shivered,
Gripped your mother’s hand,
And waited
—Waited for the permission of the rain

IV

August 19th, 1926—August 19th, 1996:

He’d always liked to keep things simple.

Plain white would be just fine.

Nothing fancy, just a plain-Jane granite affair
Next to Mama’s plot beneath the willows.

—The willows,
Whose weeping branches drooped
Above the freshly turned earth,
Caressing your face as you put down roots,
Wriggling ivory toes
Into the mealy soil.

In the pocket of your black dress,

You fiddled with an empty lipstick tube,
Which he had given you
Made of battered, flecked bronze
Like an empty shotgun shell casing.

On its side was carved

Amelia Earhart.
Even so young,
You’d recognized Grandpa’s spidery scrawl,

But he’d mussed your blond hair,

Told you he’d found it on safari,
And you curled your tiny fingers around it,
Loving it like you loved the rain
—Not because of any love you had
For a battered lipstick tube
Or the untimely tears of God,

But because his tobacco-stain fingerprints

Twined up the cylinder’s side
—Like morning glories,
Or funeral mourners
Waiting upon the convenience of the rain.