Wild with Dandelions & Roses

1

Like sands through the hourglass, the tv
intones, every weekday at 3,
bending my grandmother into her stories, trapping me

on the swirling rag carpet
as I drive my Matchbox Camaro

to the stitched center and back. Saturdays
Tarzan fills the room & I learn

about quicksand, how the less you struggle

the slower you sink.

2

She gave me five names for roses, a brook & thorny

blackberries. She gave me Clorox
to pour on anthills, & popsicles
in the summer. Her sidedoor

was unlocked for me at night, she gave her
couch when it rained, & the sound

of her breathing. Her attic was thick
with wasps, a crate of Civil War knives

in her cellar. I could have these
if I wanted, she said I could have anything

once she was dead. She gave Kleenex
from her sleeve, the swallows from
her woodstove, baked chicken & Days of Our Lives,

cigarettes & Jeopardy

3

Here is the hallway, the lightswitch buried

under years of wallpaper, the corners
rounded, the wall springy
like the earth beneath an ancient cedar. Her yard is wild

with dandelions & roses, her fingers gnarled

from turning over flowerbeds, from crushing
Japanese beetles. She leans over the sink,

warm water runs between her fingers.

4

She told a story of how I swallowed a wasp,
I was five, I don't remember

but it always felt like a nest was building
inside me, like I was made

of paper & spit. I made small cuts in my
forearm, as if to let

something out, as if to look
inside. I patched myself with flesh-colored band-aids
& she never asked why.

5

My grandmother stands at the top of the cellar steps,
whistling. I hide
in a pile of laundry, there is cat shit

under the oil tank. I know about children
banished to the woods without food,

about infants hung from low branches for wolves,

cast adrift on palm leaves. In her attic
wasps nest in forgotten novels

& cats you can't touch

a bodiless army ready to march. The walls

down here are a foot thick, with slits
cut through for windows. I smell
raked grass, hear

an engine, a blade. I sit perfectly still
waiting for my pulse to erupt

all over my body.

Nick Flynn