I know nothing of my great-grandmother besides
the precious
knowledge of her touch, and I only know that
because I held
her hand while my father and uncle carried her
in a kitchen chair
down the stairs to the dirt floor basement,
where the jars
of okra sat in their dark peace, and the tornado
above us tore
through the unplowed field like a dull knife.
I know her
daughter, though, my grandmother, who would
treat our staph
infections by putting bacon in a band-aid
and sticking
them to our thighs. I know the way she could
straighten
us out, how she would make us pick a branch
and then
never use it, how she could feed thirty people
on any given
Sunday with the pasta she made three months
ago and stuck
in the freezer. I know her daughter, too, the way
she learned
things too early, and therefore, hurt and therefore,
hurt. I know
my sister, how she knows what I mean when I look
toward her,
while our mother holds her newborn child and her
wife runs
her thumb across her forehead, as if to say there’s
no secret
to keep anymore, which feels unusual and right like
seeing cut lilies
on a gravestone or a name clung to the sidewalk
in blue chalk.
 

—JC Andrews

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