The Unabridge Naked Truth About Grandma

Inspired by the work of a fellow artist during a class taught by Tracy Budd at the Studio School in Roanoke, VA.

The Completely

Unabridged,

Naked Truth

About

Grandma

This

is the totally unabridged

An’ naked truth

‘bout Grandma…

I know

‘cause she’s mine

An’ I’m hers…

So she tells me all the time,

Like, while she’s pinnin’ her privatey thangs

Onto the saggedy wire

That cuts ‘cross the space

Twixt the two

Tenement buildin’s

Down on Lower South Side.

It’s real near the river.

Near the river

is where Grandma used to work.

The man Momma’s seein’ now Says,

“She used to work IT

Reeeal good.”

An’ I believes him

‘cause Grandma always says,

“Give it yer best, or don’ give it at all.”

She gived me a pair of old shoes, That momma says

I can’t wear outside;

“They’s jest fer dress-up,

IN the house.”

It’s OK,

I can’t walk in ‘em,
Jest yet

But I’m practicin’.

I seen anuther pair sorta like ‘em,

Only with spikety heels that’s a lot longer den mine

At Grandma’s.

They’s reeeal red,

Redder ‘n the far-trucks that’s parked on Front Street,

But not as red as the long, sequin-dy gown

That sparkles when I let the light into Grandma’s chifferobe,

Where I’m not supposed to

Peek.

But sometimes I do.

I seen pictures in there, too.

Grandma used to dress reeeal nice,

An’ she filled that sparkle-dy gown Riiight up!

You can tell the men in those pictures

Liked it  …A lot

An’ her

Stuff

Didn’t hang like it does now.

I heard Grandma say so,

Once.

I think she still looks pretty good,

For a grandma.

I hear-d som-a the old fellas

Out front-a the closed up mercantile say as much,

They says stuff like,

“Dat woman…

Still got it…yesss, sirreee.”

They say some other things,

But Momma wouldn’t like me repeatin’ it.

So I won’t.

There’s times I think grandma jest hangs out her privatey things

To make people below look up.

‘Cause lotsa times she ain’t wearin’ nuttin’,

Specially ‘round’ the house.

She likes to stand at her winda

Catchin’ a cool breeze ‘n

Starin’ down inta that space

Betwixt the two buildin’s

Naked

All bared up

‘Cept for them red shoes.

Those times

I think she fergets that I’m there.

She gets a kinda

Smile on her lips.

Den she’ll hum a tune,

Or sway her hips

Back ‘n forth, back ‘n forth,

Til she gets tired or remembers I’m there.

She’ll slip her purpledy dressing gown over her shoulders

An’ then slip off those shoes,

Rubbin’ hard at her toes,

Shakin’ her head,

Laughin’ ‘bout somethin’,

I don’t know.

If I ask,

She’ll just say,

“Child, you is too young for my stories…

Someday…

Someday we’ll talk,

But not just yet.”

You can bet, I won’t let her ferget that.

She usually makes me get her biters off the mantel piece,

Then tugs one of my braids, when she slips those yellowin' teeth into place.

Some mornin’s she fixes me mush before we do the shoppin’.
I only like Grandma's mush.

She takes her liquidy “med-cine”

From a cup.

I know what

“med-cine”

Really is.

My daddy used to buy it at the licker-store,

Before momma made him leave.

Grandma says hers is for the arthee-rightus.

It sure does loosen her up good.

Sometimes,

when she’s all good an’ loose,

We turn up the music

Reeeal high.

An’ we dance ‘round the room like hootchy cootchy mamas,

‘Til we lie in a heap,

Her warm, perspired arms wrapped ‘round my skin ‘n bones,

Laughin’
'Til tears spill out an’ down our cheeks.

Momma wouldn’t approve,

So we don’t tell her.

There’s lots of

Stuff

We don’t tell momma,

But sometimes,

I think momma’d like to dance

An’ just “hang out”

Like Grandma.

I seen her open her shirt by the bathroom winda before

To let the cool breeze

Fill her up with a little smile.

But she don’t stand there fer long,

An’ she don’t smile much.

Grandma says,

“she’s a differnt kinda bird,”

Not like me

Or her, 
“Which is probly a good thang.”

Momma goes to church.

Grandma don’t,

But she knows a whole lotta that bible right by heart.

She keeps hers tucked inside the bedside table drawer

With a little silver flask,

Three pairs of glasses,

An old piece of lace wrapped ‘roun an old prickly stem,

An’ pieces of dried up petals,

An’ a picture of somebody I don’t know

In a uniform.

On the back it’s got writin,’

“Remember me when I am gone

I’ll be your dreams until the dawn

Though days may pass with me afar

My love is twinkling in the stars.

Forever yours, Henry XO”

I can’t ask Grandma ‘bout it

‘Cause I’m not supposed to be a nose-a-body.

Seen her lookin’ at it late at night, when I peek in 
Quiet like on my way to the bathroom.

Sometimes she’s talkin’ to it,

The picture,

Sometimes she just stares,

But every once in a while,

She’s all dressed up in that sequin-dy dress

Dancin’,

Holdin’ tight to that picture

Of a uniformed man

Who’s called Henry, XO.

In the mornin’ she’ll be back at the winda

Maybe, naked as a jay-bird

With her feet in those high up heels

Pinnin’ her privatey thangs to the wire

That runs ‘twixt the two tenements down on Lower South Side,

Near the river,

Where Grandma’s lived

Forever.

An’ where I am learnin’

The Unabridged an’

Naked truth

About Grandma.