Amelia

I kneel beside Grandma,
her head on a pillow,
a blanket drawn beneath both arms.
Her chest is silent, steady,
face smoothly drawn,
lips sealed without expression.

Grandma quit school
in sixth grade
to raise four siblings
when her mother succumbed
to the throes of childbirth.
She helped to raise
three brothers and a sister
and mourned losing
each of them to death.

"She looks good," Mom says
beside me.  "She looks so young."

A gold band gleams
on Grandma's finger,
from the day Edgar
placed it there,
in front of the altar
and a hushed congregation
at St. Joseph's Church.

In love they conceived my mother,
birthed her upstairs
in the house on Friendship Street.
He died five years later
in a car accident.
She refused to marry again,
afraid a new husband 
wouldn't love Mom 
like Edgar had.

When I was a boy,
Grandma flipped flap-jacks
better than a breakfast chef.
She served up tacos,
ham barbeque, potato salad,
and soup for Sunday lunch.
On holidays, she toiled
in a steaming kitchen
basting turkey or roast pork,
mashing potatoes,
straining sauerkraut.

She set and cleared the table,
ironed and tailored clothes,
played crazy-eights,
cracked jokes and told riddles
before tucking me and my brother
into bed.

Grandma was never distant
until now, her release
from sickness irresistible.
We kneel and speed her on her way
with kisses and brilliant red roses,
back to Earth,
Edgar,
God.

Scott Speck
08/27/99