Amma
I can whip out the accent
at the drop of a hat.
The sweet, syrupy voice stuck with me,
and its slow drawl,
as it demanded goodness while she
told me I was beautiful.
She always said that.
I could look like I crawled
out from under a dumpster in the worst
of New York's five buroughs and
she meant it when she said I'm gorgeous.
As I left, she'd grab my right hand
with her left and shake it--
patting it, staring into my eyes,
saying, "my beautiful girl"
without fail and with so much love.
She was sugar, lemons, and iced tea:
the Southern stereotypes and manners personified,
ugly parts included but she was so good.
She had a rich woman's attitude and
just enough money to hang on.
Her daughter won the scratch-off lotto
just after Amma immigrated to Illinois but her Southern
hosipitality grew and the parties
She was soft, yellow sunshine
poured out on all of us.
Picture a garden, stuffed with
those huge pink flowers that almost look ripped
and ripe orange trees with less green than orange and
blossoms, and minty leaves
and a white trellis covered in climbing vines
that's my Amma.
When I was little, and we visited
the guardhouse where she lived,
next to mansion, she had hair so long
it floated down near her knees, pure white,
and she gave it one hundred strokes exactly
every night, a long braid,
wrapped and pinned in a classy bun
every day.
Like me, the woman was always cold.
Snow covered winters were torture for her,
and that was when she talked most of "down home."
We went back there at the dawn of summer
with her ashes in a box.