And the last one I'm going to read to you is one
that I don't think was in your materials,
but it's one of my favorites.
And it's about my grandmother, and it's
about me growing up here in Tucson,
and how we lived together for many, many years.
It's called "Grandma."
"Watching the last possessions leaving through the back door,
she smiles at the fifty-year static
rising from the oriental rugs she prized.
Investments against a market she could not control or give
her concern.
Eye still bright, gleaming, wit and rage at 99,
she does not notice the mothball smell
preserving the flowered-silk purse, the square-heeled shoes,
almost fashionable.
The rolling metal chair she calls home,
has replaced the painted English upholstery
from which she shared holidays celebrating
the miracle of Oz turning green from the old black and white
console.
Football championships covered in snow brought
by the wonder of electricity, and ritual meals
served with dull regularity to distant relatives glowing
in the warmth of winters invited 60 degrees.
Struggling to gift her life's collections,
she uncovers memories of weekends at the drive-in.
Already a grandmother, these 45 years
passed, concealing the drunk second husband
in the garage of her faith.
Happiness experienced long ago, now balances
empty on sorrows edge, exhausting the clarity of age.
Watching generations of her men move cherry wood and ivory
to a neighborhood forbidden to her youth,
she strives to connect this ghost world.
Hapless and precarious to the old ballroom
of her confusion of a wedding, dresses, boulevards,
and sisters devoured by time.
Ignoring the silence beyond tomorrow,
she grapples with the doctors cold pronouncement,
either cruel nor suspenseful, unforgiving in her return
stare of truth that will withstand the last pain.
Her long elderly face, hair thinning,
will not be dazzled by his poor human vision slipped
through the depths.
She knows she cannot win the eternal bet.
Struggling against the decrepitude of the empty room
before her reign, left to solitary escapes, her time,
thoughts verge on the task of living day to day.
Knowing so long as her acerbic tongue
can defend against nature's incursions,
she remains in the exile of a life, gathered and lost.
She has had no more or less than others.
She will determine when it is time to go."
[APPLAUSE]