Remains

Talking to my grandmother
via video call from her place
in a nursing home,
I reflect on how little she knows
but how much she still remembers.

Facts like “this is my grandson”
have gone, along with teaching me tennis
and playing Jenga on long afternoons.
But the rhythms of our conversations
are still there. Chriupping “hello!”,
she chirups back and we grin
like birds on a telephone wire.
The melody lingers as if struggling
to play through a fog of static.

I picture our phone calls from ten years ago,
and her house with its manicured but simple lawn,
afternoon light on the car
that her late second husband had left.
The quiet and orderly street
that says the old live here,
having feathered this nest.

And she looks on the video call,
for a moment, just like she might have done
when standing in her hall, picking up
the house phone from its cradle.

Even as she melts
into her nursing home chair,
becoming someone else.

When words dissipate
the music of image and sounds
can be all that remains,
though it’s enough to hear
the lip reading of love.