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What’s Missing Now

Sometimes a moment in time sticks with you for decades, and this poem pays homage to one of those moments.

What’s Missing Now

I know very well that great-grandma was missing

much of one leg. She liked to sit me there

on her wheel chair’s foot rest and take me

for a spin about the house, the small circuit

of kitchen, hallway, living room, dining room

then through the two doors of the powder room

to end up back by the refrigerator’s hum.

It seemed larger then and has shrunk

through the years: our not-so-smooth race track

with four sills and three doorknobs to navigate,

the grooved footrest she flipped down for my seat,

her good leg I clung to as she seemingly

zoomed around corners, spun her chair in circles

on the kitchen linoleum until I was dizzy.

Then I’d get up, hands out, and spin some more,

like a ballerina or ice skater, until I was a blur,

and fell, and we laughed and laughed.

It’s what happens when you’re an early baby

she’d say: your skinny little bottom

fits right there, no bigger than my shoe.

All those Thanksgiving dinners at our place,

so many generations together, and now gone,

she made me sit beside her long after dinner

had turned to apple pie and coffee,

putting bits of fruitcake, slices of orange,

chips of red-striped ribbon candy on my plate.
Published inMy PoemsNatl Poetry Month 2024