Love

My grandmother insists that we eat off matching dessert plates

Blue flowers

How absurd we think (it's just a casual dinner)

but before she can speak

my grandfather has already sorted them and removed

all the white ones.

Ricardo Lopez

We watch selected excerpts from
your 18 hour tape.

Armed with popcorn
a can of coke.

And all the while call you disturbed.

My Rock

I've always been so strong.

Always been the rock, the support beam for
everyone to lean on.

But you were my rock that day.

And I stood there with a straight back
offered my beam with dry eyes and
a sympathetic smile.

They didn't see my hand holding yours -
grasping so tightly my knuckles were white or
how I held onto your arm so tightly on the way
to the car for fear of falling down.

They just saw me - strong and supportive and
wondered how I was pulling it off.

They didn't know.

You were my rock that day.