FRIDAY NIGHT PIZZA

FLOWER DOLLS

I admit it. My grandparents have been on my mind lately. :)

FLOWER DOLLS

I sometimes worry I'll forget her face,

the gentle waves love creased around her eyes,

the Oil-of-Olay softness of her skin,

every white hair earned and perfectly curled.

The soles of her canvas gardening shoes

were stained green with outside hours.

One day, warm with the scent of Grandma's roses,

I wrapped my baby fist around her finger

and toddled across the expanse of her back yard.

Here, rainbows grew on stems.

They edged the driveway, wound around the fences

and splashed around the corners of the house.

She plucked dead blossoms and tossed them to the earth.

The ones merely wilting, she picked and gave to me.

Turn them upside down, she said. See the pretty dresses.

They're ladies at Cinderella's ball.

While she weeded her garden, I sat at her picnic table

and twirled my flower dolls across their wooden floor.

Her garden is very different now. There are no roses,

no petunias or pansies along the fences,

no humming-bird feeder in the crab-apple tree.

Vibrant greens of the back yard grass have faded, aged, yellowed.

The bird bath was hauled to the shed years ago,

and the picnic table has disappeared.

It's a short car ride up the hill to the cemetery, a quiet place

for stillness and remembering. The only flowers here

are the silk ones my mother places beside the tombstone.

I long for a live rose to lay across Grandma's feet.

In my mind, she's still strong and vivacious,

her face a lovely flower that twirls across my mind.