Poem Published in South Carolina Review

His Grandmother as a Wind Chime
-for Julia Brewin, August 29, 1928-September 1, 2006


The grandmother can't help dragging her kidney-
colored housecoat on the Dalmatian shag carpet,
her short legs like onionskin, her hair a shrub

thinning in fall. She can't help the army of candles
on her marble cake, the bruises, needle pricks
and scars on her fingers, or that she passes away

in her sleep three days after her birthday, her grandson
crying, a year old, crawling head first into a coffee table
as his parents empty hangers and closets,

vacuum rugs, trash jars of potpourri from the pink
and green bathrooms, unhook and pack up
the prized wind chimes that clanged by the side door

where she'd sit and clean cornsilk and husks from cobs
of Silver Queen and Jersey Sweet. The old house sells,
and the tinny clammer of chimes sings in a new kitchen

as the grandson mouths words and sounds
from his highchair, his mother baby-talking to him,
"Hear that, honey? That's Mom-mom talking to you.

Say 'Hi, Mom-mom!'" By the time the grandson
is naming objects--laundry bins and diaper boxes--
his parents tuck him in his crib, and years later, ask him,

"Did you say goodnight to Mom-mom? Go say
'Goodnight.' Ask her for good dreams." He totters out
of his room, kneels beneath the wind chimes and whispers.

And the grandson believes the raw metal tubes,
the knotted thread and steel loops are the body of his lost
grandmother, croon to him throughout the day,

knell approval at the sight of crayon sketches--a boy
perched beside a wreath of ringing pipes. During art class
at the kindergarten and elementary school, he sculpts

modeling clay into snakes and little hammers, comes home
on the bus to a snack of grapes, a backdrop of soft gongs
and tolls, his mother declaring, "There she goes

again! I swear your grandmother only makes a peep
when you're here!" He gets dropped off
at the middle school early so he can raise the state flag

outside the main office, stays after for band practice
where he plays the vibraphone and sits first chair. At night,
he has dreams of swinging, strings and cords hugging him,

his limbs hollow rods, his mouth a ringing bell.