1.
My grandmother molds
her raisin fingers into the flour,
kneading palms against
the rising tide of powdery dough.
I watch as she works knitting needles
against each other,
spinning stories in an unfamiliar dialect;
the yarn crafts a maze I get lost in.
She teaches me to tame string
tangled
between awkward fingers
and tells me to never forget.
The maze becomes familiar to my eyes.
 

2.
Mother used to carry me when I only existed below her waist. I never knew what pain was, only the scrapes on knees from clumsy feet. In car rides home on lonely, late-night Friday streets, she would point to the fingernail in the sky.

           Look, the moon is following you.

3.
I still remember
the boy with the jellybean smile:
you were always there
like sun, like rain,
like the air we couldn’t breathe in
from laughing so hard.
 

I finally asked about you again a few years back.
My mom told me about her funeral,
where you released last farewells
before you carried your bones
across oceans
to meet another shore.