Grandma Geraldine’s Geraniums

Grandma Geraldine
lived in Georgia
and grew exquisite geraniums.

Summer after summer
When I was a girl,
I used to sit on her window ledge
while she cried out the names
of herbs she grew in her kitchen garden.
“Look, child,” she’d say in her
Georgian drawl,
her buttermilk eyes
fluid behind her bifocals,
“This here is rosemary,
and that there is oregano,
and this here is pasta
from the corner store,
and here in the pot,
you put my herbs
and some bright red tomato paste,
a handful of Parmesan cheese
(as much as you like),
and you got yourself
one of them fancy Italian plates.”
Then she’d take her watering can
and sprinkle her beloved geraniums.
She’d hold each stem
and whisper God only knows what
to the petals.
“Look, child,
that there is your gran’ daddy,
snorin’ on his see-saw chair,
and these here
are my geraniums.
There never was a flower
more resilient.
There never was a thing alive
that loved this woman more,”
she’d say and point
her thumb to her chest.
And all this while
Grandpa would sleep in his chair
after eating his fancy Italian plate
(with Grandma’s rosemary
and Grandma’s oregano)
and Grandma would water her geraniums.

One summer Grandma burned dinner.
She held my hand
as I sat on the window ledge,
and looked at me
with her buttermilk eyes.
“Look here, girl-child,
plant my geraniums near my grave,
and tell the grave-digger
to bury me far from your gran’ daddy
and right by my geraniums.
There never was a thing alive
that loved this woman more,”
she said and pointed
her thumb to her chest,

while Grandpa belched and spat
and called Grandma Geraldine
good-for-nothing Georgia garbage.