This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “Ways of Rounding.”

Ways of Rounding

With time my grandmother’s teeth have 

been ground to split pills: marbles that 

clink softly in the hollows of her mouth,

filling with the whitish chimes of a 

living room clock leaning right. It turns 

out I have not grown nearly as much as she 

said I would. These words, too, tapering

off before her drying ears can swallow. 

We lie together on a war footing: civil 

and impending. My first thought as I 

stuttered to take her hand being you 

might not be able to do this one day

soon; until she says it is not good to lie

in one place for too long, and I forget who 

unlatched their fingers first, but we 

roll away like marbles nudged nearer 

to be repelled by their inertness, 

only the sweat sticky on my hand

to remember holding hers.

Ways of Rounding

She tells me she was born with every

thing except the peripheral. So from the

third month of nineteen forty two, she was

one of those spires of sunlight, icy mist

rising off the frozen pond, threading its

own fractures of footprints and frost. But

since then my grandmother’s teeth have 

been ground to split pills: marbles that 

clink softly in the hollows of her mouth,

filling with the whitish chimes of a living 

room clock tilting right on the wall. It turns 

out I have not grown nearly as much as she 

said I would; these words, too, tapering

off before her drying ears can swallow. On 

her bed in the room corner, my head bruises

on a rounded redwood frame, her thin hair 

creasing on the comforter. She wants to 

know something every minute: do I want

the lights on, or the fan; isn’t it too warm

for me in here, don’t I need a pillow, and 

after that question, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s 

seventeenth story ends asking —Isn’t there

someone kind enough to strangle me 

in my sleep? which makes me aware

that she has never asked me for such a

thing, just that her teeth are clicking in

the silence: marbles echoing from those

nights of her tucking the sheets up to my

ears, holding my hand until my eyes

stopped fluttering. Then she’d let go by

substituting her hand with another thing

to feel, a stuffed penguin’s wing or a

duckling’s beak, but sometimes I was only

pretending to asleep, and I wouldn’t let her

go, and she’d stay with me longer, staring at 

the white spots out the window and praying

for me to grow up well. From where I am

lying now, my toes can reach the window, 

so I pull one silver-lined curtain away 

with my foot, and it lets the white sky 

onto the ceiling, and the first thought when

I stutter to take her hand becomes you 

might not be able to do this one day

soon. So then my hands are curled in her

soft ones, and I remember there’s a love

of God for us, and a love for people you

are close to, and another I’m still trying

to remember when she says it is not good to lie

in one place for too long, and I forget who 

unlatched their fingers first, but we 

roll away like marbles nudged nearer to

be repelled by their symmetry, the two

of us fraught with not moving, only

the warmness rising from my hand

to remember holding hers.