Granny rescued me from Momma and Houston
after learning we were homeless.
Her piney woods trailer is wig spray, sandalwood, and stability.                                                                                        I love it there.

One afternoon, a stench like an army of musty, dead dogs invades
her kitchen’s air. The bloated belly of her pantry sags—
calls fungal songs, rattles decay.  
We clean flea market cutlery for hours, sniff through
a hoarder’s delight of paint-chipped pots. Until
a murky flower vase: maggot-soaked,
and a furry black lump like a suspended tumor.

The four horsemen of funky shit raid our nostrils
Rotten shit, Granny spits. Smells like aftermath
of a Viking horde—men leave their stink.

A rat, a dead rat, in a vase it couldn’t climb out of.
Her pastel peach tail is the only color left.
She’d lost herself foraging for crumbs to bring back to her baby.

Momma, I see you everywhere.
You were surviving in the wrong direction,
scavenging for treasure in crumbs left as scraps—
ignoring the burdens that cased you in glass.