To Grandmother's

Maybe everyone's just worn you out by now, like the creaking swing set in the yard, like eyes going heavy, like a snowstorm on a soft but lonely bed… If only someone would sing a beautiful song on a guitar, or a ukulele if nothing else was around, and then — warm chatter, and cups of Pele coffee, with milk and sugar, a half-litre mug — and just like that, everything, would stop mattering so much. I'm falling asleep, my breathing barely there… Full and foolish, and up onto the old stove, warm as home, like Yemelya, I'd climb up and sink into a dream smeared in watercolor… I'd sleep straight through the winter, through March, and only wake up in April, when the wind no longer bites and the birds have flown back home…