Chocolate-covered Cherries

for Grandma

I buy the cheap kind, Queen Anne, a thin
coating of chocolate housing gooey, white
centers. Your pantry always stocked
with at least two boxes, cardboard
smelling of cigarettes.

Once you slapped my hand for watching
a sex education show, the TV framed by
china shoes without feet or mates. You
loved the child in me, long blond hair,
smiling-open face. But when I was older
I became you, raven-haired, solemn-eyed,
all Bettie Page bangs and flesh-colored
nylons. Though we smoked and conspired
together, your twigs of cigars made me cough.
"Grow your hair long and golden again,"
you'd scold, and somewhere, softly,
I hated you for it.

Now my brow creases as yours did, sisters
in melancholia, the ashtray overflowing
with butts, those gray snowflakes like
dancing motes. I uncover my treasure, peel
back the scrim of cellophane from two
flimsy plastic crates. When that first gush
of white-oozing sweetness melts over
my tongue, a lone tear slides down
like the Crying Indian on TV, the one
with the haunting face, who came between
M.A.S.H. and The Love Boat,
mourning all that waste.