Grandma’s Hands
Grandma eats Raisin Bran for breakfast and apologized
she didn’t have any other cereal for me to eat.
Yesterday, Auntie took her to Costco and so she had:
chips and grapes and a pineapple and someone gave her blue-green, free-range eggs.
I made myself the brightest, yellowest scrambled eggs I’d ever seen
and after, I scrubbed the pan and she said,
Oh honey. You didn’t have to do that.
But, ten minutes ago, she stopped up mushier and mushier spoonfuls
of Raisin Bran and I stared at the mountains and valleys of her hands —
her joints swollen and thick under shiny-wax-paper skin.
So, I told her, I didn’t mind.
I like to help.
And she rested her hand, for a moment, against my hip
as she passed behind me to put the homemade orange juice away.
Miles A.M. Collins-Sibley is Senior Poetry Editor for Cosmonauts Avenue.
They’re currently a MFA candidate at UMass Amherst’s program for Poets &
Writers. They’re an alum of Winter Tangerine’s Catalyzing Self Revolutions
workshop and their poems can be found in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The
Felt, Peach Magazine, poets.org, Cosmonauts Avenue, Split Lip Press’ 2019
Anthology, and are forthcoming in TRACK//FOUR and Black Warrior Review. You
can follow them on Twitter and Instagram @miles_n__miles
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