PAD 5 - Descriptive Poem

Grandma's Hugs

Her arms engulf me in greeting as
she holds me against her ample bosom.
I can smell the Tabu and the hard day’s work
on her flesh. She has on her navy-checked
cotton dress that has been line-dried and
starched in the sink before she put the iron to it.

She gets her vast body into her worn green
vinyl lounge chair and sighs to let me know
all is not well with her or many others.
She picks at her cuticles as she worries
about me, family and friends, and the world.
She punctuates my update with “Well…”
as she shakes her freshly permed head and fills
our space with the odor of amonia, the mole on
her chin moves as she tells me how much she
missed me, how much she loves me, how she
hopes I have a good relationship with God.

Beside her on the cheap, clanky folding table sits her
favorite Bible, highlighted and bookmarked,
the worn edges beginning to curl up. There’s
a notebook with a yellow No. 2 pencil she uses
to jot down visitors names. She checks her notes
riffles through the pages. “Not as many came today
as they did last Wednesday. I had 52 visitors last
week but I won‘t have that many this week.“ Then

I smell the biscuits baking and I I walk into the kitchen.
I notice the incline towards the back porch is steeper
the floors creak with each step. There’s always something
cooking on the stove as if she had a sixth sense about
people coming.

I open up the fluffy biscuits and add some of her fresh
churned butter and the blackberry jam she put up
last summer and we feast.She died 20 years ago
but I can still see grandma there standing by the
screen door with her arms outstretched.

Judy Roney
Nov 5, 2008






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