John Barrale
Grandmothers— like the Parrots
on the Wallpaper in My Room
When I Was Thirteen
They were older goddesses,
constant and there
like the sun
and the rain,
their faces rough sketches
in the weather of years
I hardly remember.
Each was a queen,
their feathers like jewels
and carefully formed,
the greens and yellows,
though faded,
still a clear idea
like the outline of birds
on a wallpaper’s pattern,
or the faces of the old
on porches I passed
where death was slowly sewing
and bones were threads
in October’s knots,
the claw-like hands of old friends
spread over a game of cards
and a bowl of seeds,
the truth hulled,
and picked over
in softening beaks,
the shells tossed in yards
where the sunflowers were dying
and no one walked.
The Red Wheelbarrow Poets 