Object Permanence

for my mother’s mother

Saint Paul’s cobbles, fallen flat and laughing.
Silly old woman
says Mormor.
Up and dusted,
Moving on.
Come.

Let’s take a photo with the Bobbies.

Me at eleven, a summer garden in Upsalla,
she explains the three different As.

Förlåt mig, (forgive me)
but that’s just too many.
Fine, then, she shrugs, go on in ignorance,

of currants and tapestries and gooseberry jam.
(These fruits of her fingers.)

Those summers on the Westcoast
wreathes browning on maypoles,
covered in corvids like fat black buds.
Never mind all that nonsense.
Come swim now.
The north sea is warmest in autumn.

Gold, they called you. Gudrun,
low-angled sun,
a goddess of a girl.

Your voice in my ears is beyond accent,
swans landing on ponds making
granite ellipses,
platinum and azure and bronze.

At seven, I made you say

gruesome
gruesome
gruesome

each time a new meaning,
all languages new,
borders meaningless.
my fingers raw with runes.

Förlåt mig.

I gleamed at nineteen,
against your stern warnings
dipping hard rolls for fika,
your sweet secret chocolates.

But twenty-three was twilight,
my mother dead for years then,
you leaning against me
feet picking through gnarls.

We could speak nothing deeper
than chanterelles and blue shells
the call of the ferry boat
the creaking of masts.

And then you left us,
the dark of November,
your amber and ivy,
your brocades and button box and diamonds.

Is infinity really a thing?
Do you know how to describe it?

My daughters are five and ten.
We leave the rental car near the
waterski club, find the flagpole a stump in the weeds.

I want to discover a new color.
How far does a shockwave travel?

I am looking at the lonely clothes line,
The tree swing and steps where I cried,
where I am crying now, with
no language to explain.

Can I go up the rocks, then?

To the important kingdom?
Do you think it will still be there, Mama?

Mormor, precious rescuer,
you speak through my mouth.

Jag förstår, children.
Take my hand.
Let’s go and look, and find out.