My Gramma S Couch

Won’t you please take me back To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it And hand me Grampa’s old transistor radio Covered in leather with glorious knobs That brought me the glorious music of The Beatles While I played very carefully with Her precious dog collection Some tiny, some large Hand blown glass or wooden carved She promised it would be mine one day I glance at where it hangs today On my wall and smile They thought they could cheat me out of it But somehow Veronica won from beyond the grave With a mighty flap of her shimmering wings Slapping them across their vengeful, conniving faces And it is mine Won’t you please take me back To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it Her comfy living room filled with the beauty Of stuffed antique chairs Lit with pretty cranberry glass lamps Crowned with fringed lampshades On little marble-topped gilded tables Next to the kitchen where the grownups crowded To gossip about aunts, uncles and cousins Thinking I wouldn’t understand They had a lot to catch up on since last we were there The auntie who was schizophrenic The other who had exciting explanations about her absent husband Whispers when Irish whiskey was mentioned at talk of my uncle and something called Bushmills While my mother sat and preened in her professing of our family’s perfection Won’t you please take me back To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it The road trip to Massachusetts from Virginia Was a long one in our crowded station wagon And started at McDonalds for breakfast I always looked forward to that Sitting on the coolness of the red and white tile benches Built along the outside of McD’s They didn’t even have indoor restaurants back then Further on up the road Us four kids traveling in the crowded back seats Playing car games and card games Eying the picnic basket Filled with sandwiches, pickles, chips and juice And apples, oranges and bananas But no cookies or candy Mother didn’t believe in that Running around rest stops, stopping for more gas Sleeping until we got there, tumbling out of the car to run to Gramma and Grampa Like a litter of exuberant puppies And were met by Farmer Koski who had walked out his back door Picked us a bushel of his best fresh corn cobs when he saw our car driving down the forest dirt road to Gramma and Grampas’s big red farmhouse Named Straw Hollow I remember sitting on my Grampa’s lap across from the huge stone fireplace It was the safest, happiest place in my life We lost Grampa when they lived there They had a ginger tabby named Tiger Lily Who had to be renamed Tiger Louie when they realized their mistake I’ll never forget the sound of my Gramma’s grief-stricken protests and cries My mother answered Gramma’s bedroom door and I saw Gramma clinging to my aunt My eyes asking my mother what was wrong She said Tiger Louie was lost and that’s why Gramma was crying It took me many years to realize that’s the day my Grampa died Won’t you please take me back To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it where Aunt Aggie and Uncle Leon sat there Big smiles, warm eyes, Uncle Leon’s cigars Their infectious joy in life was to laugh And have fun watching as we did too Adirondack chairs with big puffy cushions Smelling slightly musty Being kept in the backyard all summer Eating tomatoes that tasted as though kissed by heaven And little cucumbers too Perfect, splashed with crystal water From the hose Won’t you please take me back To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it So I can ask her all my questions About why my parents married Did she notice how they treated me The way Auntie Helen did And so I can hold her crooked, shaking hands So like my own And apologize for how I hurt her feelings while a runaway teenage girl Who wound up just down the street from her house All she wanted was for me to come see her And to also apologize for years later That I exhaustedly said, ”No, I really can’t” Amidst her helpless, desperate litany Sitting in her wheelchair, lost in her misery Begging, “Can you please help me?” Won’t you please take me back To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it Just don’t let me look into it