Autobiographical Novel

My grandmother muddles up the things she’s done

with what she’s read in books. Remember when

we traveled by steamship? She asks. In the shade 

of the warped and listing gazebo

in the parking lot of the Jewish nursing home.
My grandmother remembers the Orient Express

sinking into a snowdrift, the accusations and alibis.
The silk kimono, dragons rampant.

When I fly, I imagine the collision with a second plane
falling in hot slivers and worry I won’t finish writing.

What about me? You want to know. And our family? 

You are not sympathetic to the difference between

the loss of the real and the loss of the unrealized.
The tree explosive with the possibility of apples.

My grandmother remembers Cair Paravel, Camelot,
and Pemberley. She remembers the Lethe and its silent shine.

When I look up, a Jacaranda splits my face with a reveille
of petals. There is so much I want to know before the end.

In lieu of asking, I will shape my palm
into a bowl. You will place three fingers at its lip 

and give me Beyond the Pleasure Principle in paperback.
In lieu of asking, I will search the cloud forest

for a dose of ayahuasca and crawl into your skin
where you will speak to me without speaking. 

My grandmother remembers Anna in velvet.
Vronsky and his pale mustache. The waltz