He passed
away when I was eight,
Wretched from
me, before either of us were ready.
His only moment
of disloyalty,
His escape
from this world without kissing me goodbye.
Wretched from
us, before we were ready,
Would the
time ever have been right?
Yet, he escaped
this world without waving goodbye,
An
unforgivable sin for a child in second grade.
The time
would never be right,
But leaving
before he could teach me how to win at checkers,
An
unforgivable sin for a child in second grade.
A sin for
any child of any age.
Leaving me
before he could teach me checkers,
Before he
could tease me during my frizzy hair and acne stage,
A child of
any age
Needs that
honesty of her grandpa.
Before he
could tease me for my braces and nerdy boyfriend,
Before I
could understand why his jokes were “inappropriate,”
The blunt honesty
of my grandpa-
He was otherwise
known as the crazy bald man with a great sense of humor.
I never got
to understand why his jokes were inappropriate,
For all I knew, all grandpas fell down stairs just to make me laugh.
For all I knew, all grandpas fell down stairs just to make me laugh.
Everyone knew him as that crazy bald man with that great sense of humor.
That's what made us all love him.
For all I knew, all grandpas played hide and seek with their grandchildren,
But now I know better-
That man, yes, we all loved him
But now I know better-
That man, yes, we all loved him
Was as crazy (in a good way) as can be.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/114349226/playing-checkers-grandfather
*This is a pantoum-style poem, with the pattern of the refrains, but the author chose not to use rhyme.
