An Old Man and His Grandson
by Domenico Ghirlandaio
(Public Domain)
- 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.