Poetry | Spanish and English
grandmother’s chair
A poem dedicated to my grandmother.
Abuelita sat on the wooden chair until her body became a resting trunk. until her cracked hands looked like tearing bark. she would raise me high in the air with her branches until I was firmly seated on the stump. like a small bird’s beak, her fingers scratched the sky, finger nails becoming twigs. the steady motion of rubbing two fingers together, fingers of those brittle hands made the sound of rustling leaves coming together in the wind. her voice travels through the forest, reawakening the ghosts of our ancestors, giving light to the idea that the ancient can dance in between her living roots and come together as a familia with the earthworms and the beetles down below. my mamá always lights a candle for them because she said the dead can’t see in the dark.
Thank you so much for reading.






