I’m Making you Up

BY CHRYSTOS

For Beth Brant

Grandma we all need

partially deaf & busy with weaving

        listens       through a thick blanket of years & sore feet

nods    while I cry about everything they did to me

how horrible       & can’t stand another

while brown wrinkled you smile at me like sun coming up

         I stand next to you        pass wool absently

           you lay aside the wrong colors          without comment

I’m simply           Grandchild

babbling        your sympathy warm & comforting as dust

I sit in your lap           your loom pushed aside

you feed me fry bread with too much maple syrup

I pull your braids           you cradle me deeper in

your legs folded to make a basket for me

Grandma           who died long before I was born

                                        Come Back

                                             Come Back

Source: Voices Under One Sky: Contemporary Native Literature