My grandmother existed as whisps of white
In photographs; memories designed out of tales
My father told to me; what scraps of images
That I could retrieve from my first six years of life
Left there before she went to Japan, a farmer's
Widow returning to the black soils that pushed
Up the stalks of rice her father sold in bushels
In Kumamoto. She was staying in the home
Of her daughter, Teyko, when she died of a heart
Failure while she rested from the years of breaking
Veins, straining sweat laden bornings year after year
Of children and olive crops. Christmas Day had yet
To end, the artificial snow on our tree still
Fluffed, when we heard that she had not survived the Eve.
I'm ashamed to admit that I did not cry. Relief
That it was not my mom's mother was what I felt;
Yet the tears came when I saw her lying so calm,
Dim in her coffin.
It would not be the first time
I grieved over losing what I never knew was mine.
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