Walker

My grandmother, ninety, obsessed with dying,
needs help in the bathroom. Collapsing onto the wide
plastic booster chair, she slumps against
the toilet paper holder. My mother and I support
her as she wipes, and count the steps to
her walker. On the way, she straightens the hand towels.
She shuffles through
the rest of the family--six years with Aunt Kathy,
a two month stint with Joan, and a
Florida cameo with Barbara. She arrived
at our house three days ago, one day before
my dog chewed her oxygen line. Don't worry;
she's fine. Though she won't meet
anyone if her hair falls flat, applies lipstick
for the postman, whose eyes, she tells me,
seem too close together. Forty-five minutes
and four wooden steps pushing the walker
to the mailbox. Three miscarriages, seven children,
a couple strokes: a couple times a day,
she asks to die, tells us with an airy chuckle
she may not be here to see my father's tomato plants.
Huddled in a thermal blanket, she reads
her pill labels. Because soda makes her vomit,
we told her the factory shut down. Each day she
watches the news and waits for their strike to end.
At dinner time, she sits of the couch and watches us speak.
Or we play her box set of Walker, Texas Ranger,
and I think the excruciating beauty
of those Austin sunsets helps her forget,
briefly. With her red wine and pot roast, forget
the things her husband said that hurt her
after she found condoms in his pocket.
Or her alcoholic daughter,
who married three like her father.
I'm asked constatnly how old I am,
because dementia means her husband is still alive,
or that I'm her daughter,
or that she and her sister still shuffle
through the Depression in their ankle-length skirts.