Cara Nona (grandmother with grandchild)

• on closer inspection
• the reptilian folds and bulbous nose on my grandmother’s face
• become filaments of a web, her eye the spider.
• on closer inspection the folds become petals.
• she blinks.
• the flower closes, then opens.
• her knobby fingers
• run like twigs through my hair,
• rough bark catching in the strands.
• “hold still,” she says.
• now her eye looks like a lizard’s
• and a thin membrane slides over her bulging orb.
• is there anyone in the world more lovely than she?
• her skin is fine grassland partitioned off by wrinkled arroyos.
• her nostrils? twin caverns.
• her chin can reach her nose
• and hairs grow from it as sturdy as stands of white aspen.
• from the corners of her mouth waterfalls trickle
• and drop into limpid pools on her smock.
• the wafting of her breath
• brings news from coffee, cardamom, garlic, and onion.
• I can’t get enough of her.
• she knows it, sly coquette.
• “if you take your nap,” she says, “I’ll let you touch my nose.”
• I swoon with desire at the possibility. As a child, I obey.