I am become my grandfather’s ghost:
Crumbs over the kitchen sink into eternity
The children of hunger,
The Daughters Insomniac,
Nobody ever loved you like a good pot of stew.
My grandfather wore a messenger
Hat, a black leather jacket.
He is alive now, like a ghost;
I, his cool fibers drifting
Fridgewards—an infinity
In this yellow mist of morning:
The orange steam rising against the blue of the tide.
The last time I saw my grandfather
(Twenty minutes from forever)
Fingers screaming into function
And how soft everything bends!
And the creeping under the certainty
That I would never see him again.
And so I am become my grandfather’s ghost,
Feet scraping space two inches above the floor:
A family of pear trees
And cow-skin boots,
An infantry fusil in the orchard into eternity.
The communist revolution
Ate away his smile
To the core, plucked it ripe
So much civilian-hanging fruit.
And to see me! A compass
Pointed east: red spirograph/
The orange steam rising against the blue of the tide.
But I will become my grandfather’s ghost;
Pork fat and cherry trees,
Yellow polaroid summer
My daughters the daughters of hunger and insomnia,
Grass yard, garden, and pear-skin stolen sun–
The hunger of the soldiers belly
Gnawing at beauty/a paring knife
In the Day Amber flesh of the world:
Calloused hands working the fruit
From the rind into eternity.
Notabeanie is a trans, disabled artist and creator of the comic Moody Bluth: Youth Sleuth; co-writer of the film Woman-Land; and author of dozens of zines, songs, stories, and essays. Their work appears in Hamilton Arts & Letters, Kraken Comics, AZE, Oratorealis, and more. Find them on instagram @notabeanie.
