by Geoff Anderson

My grandmother has left
her song unfinished; the guitar

purring as the hard shell unlatches,
the body goes back in.

Nights I got lost in arithmetic
at the dinner table, I would listen

to her sing about a boy
who caught dragon flies in a jar

before he became a man.
Once, I asked my grandmother

why she cracked on the refrain
as if the pitch had grown too tall.

Tonight, I strum the pebbles
of a sharp chord while she boils

angel hair. Minutes is all it takes
for the ageless water to thin, 

my grandmother straining
as the lip of the pot runs dry.

Geoff Anderson curated Columbus, OH’s first poetry shows for biracial writers (The Other Box), translation (Lingua Franca), and immigration (New World). He’s a Callaloo fellow and his chapbook, Humming Dirges, won Paper Nautilus’s Debut Series (2017). He has work on/forthcoming in Tinderbox, Juked, Southern Indiana Review, and www.andersongeoff.com.