And when it was over, my grandfather—
every quaking shut door of him—turned off
the stove. I approach his naked figure.
The skin on his back: ashfall. His breathing a village
running towards safety. I tell him a tray
of noodles was to be there later,
by the doorway. A glacier of sugar too
was fighting summers in the freezer.
His eyes listened, but his hearing, already 
decades ahead of me, was lost, a revolution
incubating in the forest. He shows me 
a sunny side up egg on the pan, runny gold
an afternoon sinking into water. Pepper
landmines his creation, burnt and salted
like the earth we will inherit. I take a plate
and fork, sit down with him. I respond
to the riddles of our lifetimes in every bite.
It is gamey, like fresh bird, and as scorching
as a neighborhood. I am going to lose him.
I am burning through lyric and its jars
of homunculi, its albedo and folds of gold.
I am learning, just by watching him fetch
a jug of water, that form cannot hold,
that he has breached through parentheses.
(But look at this meal, oily with affection.
Look at the tremor in his wake, how ours it is.)