Grandmother, Let’s Conclude
by Noah Trammell
where I always
conclude: in this apartment pissing, drinking, chanting,
thinking—these bones of snails the moon & a bowl of blood
red stew for the sun. Grandmother,
I can tell you the thoughts of my grand piano
with a touch & sense the heat
leaking from concrete into sneaker-soles
& stars.
I have stood between Wichita,
1 A.M. & winter to see a man rehearse
his pirouette in glass twelve stories up the dark,
collapsing air.
I also mispronounce bougainvillea.
You say that I’m contaminated
by the future, where
that jet’s the size of
a hummingbird or the small of
your back. You feed me
the dimes of your funeral & leave
so much to me: the color of the carpet, a caved-in
soccer ball, the rain, that oak in its singular,
windswept myriad & a girl smoothing
the shudder from a pony’s side,
her cheek to its soaked hide…
The Kingdom of Heaven
is inside you, you say,
& reach for your crochet hooks & stitch
me shut.
Noah Trammell is an alum of the BOAAT Writers Retreat, an intern at Four Way Books, and a 2019 Virginia G. Piper Fellow. An MFA candidate at Arizona State University, he lives in Phoenix with his partner and two cats. His work has appeared in mojo, BOAAT, and West Branch.