My grandmother’s memories have turned into sand as fine as her hair
She tries to hold on to them
but they flow from her fists in streams
So, I’ve begun to carry a bucket when I visit
Hoping to catch as many as I can
She sifts through them
Repeating them indefinitely
As though hoping that some of the coarse grains will imprint themselves on me
She tells me three times of the well by their house
Five times of visiting the States
Twice of fleeing to India with her children
And asks me thrice whether I’ve finished college
I fear the stream is soon going to run out
The desert replaced by blank stone
Then I’ll scoop grains out of the bucket
Back into her open palms
One day she asks me whose daughter I am
That day I add some sand of my own
I tell her, and satisfied
She asks me to stay a while longer.
So I hold on to my bucket a little tighter.