My Grandmother...

Likes to garden

and her temper

is as

hot as her

pepper sauce

that she makes,

from the peppers that grows on her tree.

She tends to her garden

although her back hurts,

picking green, bulbous avocados

limey-green oranges

under the cruel caribbean heat.

My grandmother

loves to eat vegetables

and warns never to eat

meat every day.

She prays

and never reads.

Her nose has surrendered

to

gravity

as well as her breasts.

She laughs at herself.

She cries for me, sometimes.

Silently.

I know

because she has told me.

My grandmother is

more beautiful,

a million more times more beautiful

a zillion to the point where you can't

even count, more beautiful than

Paris Hilton.

She is full of class

She takes the motherless in

puts her faith in

her actions

takes care

of those

who don't have

anyone to take care of them.

My grandmother

smells like limacol

dinnermints

onions

chives

fresh green

of woman toiling hard.

My grandmother

is where

I want to rest

my weary head

on days

My soul

forgets itself.