Whether plump or thin almost all
of them had loosened skin
draping along their upper arms,
crinkled flesh that swayed
as they sat on the piano bench
or stood, flour-covered
at the kitchen counter, rolling
crust for rhubarb pies or dough
for raisin cinnamon bread.
 
They came from Midwest farms,
southern hills, potato fields
in Ireland, places we never knew.
We wondered how they grew those
wings and would we ever get ours.
 
My own grandmother was solid
and sensible as the sturdy
Sears catalogue shoes she wore,
genuine as the 1870 silver dollar
she kept, a gift from her father.
 
She read us stories my busy
mother of five had no time for.
Once she cried on my shoulder
when her brother died, but mostly
she was the one who held out comfort
like the soft patchwork quilts
she pieced from scraps.
 
No mere nostalgia, our memories
of these women are real
as the smell of fresh-baked bread
cooling on the window sill,
apron pockets full of sweets,
and the pendulous swing of their arms
as they worked the wheels
of old black Singers,
stirred batches of strawberry jam
or played the piano,
their wings fleshy metronomes
that swung and gently kept time
to the long hours we spent
in our grandmothers' shadows
growing wings of our own.

© by Christine Vovakes.
Used with the author’s permission.