Walking on Water

first appeared at Split This Rock
	 
i bought her a shitty ass chicken sandwich.
$18.59 and dripping with oil—
my grandmother. she blessed
the meal for ten minutes before
taking a bite. poured out devotion like
gasoline. like pepsi cola. we knew then
that she was dying, but i lived
in the first paragraph, unprepared.
i should’ve taken my
inheritance that afternoon:
a flour tin and the old photographs. foolish,
how i believed i could come back.
how i thought there would be someplace
to come back to. eviction and its soggy boxes.
no time to decide what
to sell, what to take.
trash bags brimming
with coats, dishes split in the dumpster’s heat.
my grandmother’s social security check: $1,032.16.
my aunt gambles it
for a miracle. your daddy
was born a piece of shit, she whacks
through the phone. a wake
of vultures, scavenging the same carcass:
my grandmother, my aunt, and me.
my mother is nowhere to be found.
in berlin, i watch the wide winged
swan on the canal. whirring mother
of a bird. the swan’s webbed feet
on the water,
quickening, quickening.
the swan hurls itself
into lift, skipping and
churning.
and the miracle?
it does and does not
arrive.

emet ezell
    

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