Osteoarthritis
Wrapped in a glad baggie and taped
to the plaster of my bedroom wall,
my grandmother smiles at me
from a seventy year old photograph.
She cradles a shotgun, its head
held gently in her left hand, her right
supporting the butt. She’s comfortable.
I believe the fur coat that drapes
her is brown, but I can’t tell in the grays
and whites of the photo. It sparkles,
almost, and in this cold leaking through
my bedroom window I wonder
about its warmth. She is smiling
and her teeth are straight, bright,
bought that way with the same
bootleg money that bought her
that coat, that gun. This picture
is from the depression era. This night,
my shoulder has woken me up,
the scar there swollen, like it gets
sometimes before the rain.
The line of it is straight, bits
of the flesh still folded on itself,
strange for a gunshot wound,
even one this old. There’s this look
in her eyes, a gazing, like it’s past
the camera man. I can almost see
the lines of her mouth crinkle,
speaking, “sleep, mijo, sleep”
as I try for something other than awake
once more. I imagine her watching
over me, shotgun light in her hands,
her back and neck strong, eyes clear,
daring someone.