Noon. Your noon sun shone too bright,

It was two-thirty on a morning back in sixty-four, and we met in a small hall between our rooms. She stood robed with hair fanned over both shoulders, light from the street made a dark silhouette of her body. With her silvery hair flickering as she faced me, she turned, and I could see the light in her hair cascaded, falling off her back to her waist. It was the only glimpse I recall of Grandmother, with her hair down. The first time​ I noticed​ how beautiful she was​ as a woman. --Tim Cusick Right Click Image Save: Download PDF to Print:

On any summer’s day

I was thinking of that desert night

I never thought this would do it, but

I remember my father best

Rhinestones glitter where the snail makes

The tree falling does make a sound

You were sweet and you were warm

Under a high fly ball to right

Amelia, my father's mother, lived too far from California to be Grandma. Nebraska's distance stretched her title wider: Grandmother 'Melia. But it was into grandma's lap we'd slip after two thousand miles on our Dodge's hard cushions. All of ten, I really wanted to check out the bra section. But excitement was running through me--I just had time to tear and wipe with that cold, glossy Sears & Roebuck. Guess uncle James was trying to cool me off with direct-hit squirts of unpasteurized cow's milk. Grandma 'Melia handed me towels to dry off, then a lap-seat show of her photo album. Even that fading black and white​ showed her face in tactile contradiction:​ mango fresh cheeks up to the rims​ where two coal-rough eyes begin.​ She holds her infant sister​ one third her size: head above head​ with electric fence eyes​ daring, "get past here alive!" "My Lord," I worried even then,​ "was she ever given time to be ten? --Tim Van Ert​ Right Click Image Save: Download PDF to Print:

My entire career sleeping in a bed,