It is Friday night and I am in a nursing home

serving slippery pasta to stoic stares.

I watch the minutes hand of the clock

like it holds the answers to eternity. 

and then I spot a child, sitting on a folding chair.

she turns to the woman beside her and asks

Grandma, why is your hair grey?

Grandma lets a subtle smile float to her lips

before she begins her answer

Child, my hair is silver 

because I shampoo with bottled stardust.

The girls eyes grew wide and she studied

her grandmother’s body. 

Grandma, why are your knuckles knobby?

Grandma laughed, the first laugh I had heard all night.

Child, in my last life I was a mermaid.

I spent so many hours deep in the sea

that my skin became pruned and pooled.

The girl drew her chair closer to her grandmother.

She rolled her thumb over Grandma’s hand 

as if she was trying to soak up magic. 

Then she spoke again,

Grandma, why are you in a wheelchair?

Grandma thought a moment and cleared her throat,

Child, I spent so many years pushing your mother,

on swings and into the future,

I thought it was finally time for her to push me. 

The girl nodded, satisfied, and asked one last question:

Grandma, why do you live here?

Grandma swallowed sting and lied for the first time all night:

Child, there is no place I would rather be.