porch stories

her bungalow porch is flanked at either end by lattice-climbing vines that wrap
around the posts and up the eaves      to block the neighbors
          them renters to the west don’t go to church
          can’t cut the grass or keep the peace from friday night to monday noon

on this side good people the heinrichs     bill works for the city
he shares the driveway and the white garage
          gramma don’t drive
in return he takes care of the front yard
in back she keeps a garden     dirt smells of dill and beets     beans with german names
it’s the front porch though where two rockers creak in the wind

sometimes           when nobody else is home they go           off-rhythm
in their conversation
                    more syncopated than a church accordion song
cat leaps to the column pier      arched back     hissing
but i see who’s there          telling stories from the bible both of them know by heart

big church dinner                	                              him over that side
grandma crowded in here    
          she was nine     grandpa fourteen

                         i looked at him and he looked at me and that’s all we said

decades flip the bible pages by      rapid-as-a-home-made-cartoon-animation
until he left them
                              spilling
                                          to the floor by the bed
                                                                                 and her still in it
          her joints tormented her so

	  i sat up in the dark     it wasn’t a dream
          he come here and here he knelt
          on all that crinkle paper      put his hands on my knees          like this
          and prayed			his hands give such heat win     she called me win

in the morning she woke up pain completely gone          and grampa too
back where he come from      the ether heaven or the quantum field
what’s it matter to a ligament that no more needs the liniment
                                       than a grandson churched and mystified