At night,
when I am cold and scared,
my grandmother comes.
She’s the only one to comfort me.
Her small, intelligent eyes,
always looking at the page of a book
with strange letters I don’t understand.
Except A, the start of my name.
Her thin, dark hair streaked with gray,
tied in a tight bun
put together with a carefully carved stick,
perhaps by someone she loved very dearly.
Her worn, hard hands
curled around mine,
barely bigger than her palm.
She’d say,
“You remind me of your father, you know,
the way you’d climb onto that windowsill,
insisting on seeing the stars.”
Or,
“You are just like your mother, you know,
the way you eat your dinner.
I remember, having her over sometimes.
It always saddens me that you never got to meet them.”
Tonight,
I am cold and scared,
wearing a black dress and clutching a book, damp from tears.
I stare at the sky as if looking for something.
The wind screeches, the leaves cackle, the stars are empty of light.
There is no one to comfort me tonight.