Grandmother

She smelt of burnt cigarettes and moth balls
Sitting at the kitchen table, a single stream of smoke
spiraling up to the ceiling
One elbow planted on the table holding her cigarette
and the other under her chin
looking down her bifocals
at a Sunday morning paper
from last weekend

She never fully smiled
It was always a hesitant act
But she would hug you until you couldn't breathe
Her fingers stroking my hair
and pulling it into a ponytail
Recalling memories of when I was just a little girl
running around barefoot through the grass
and bothering the chickens
swinging on the homemade rope swing that
hung from the great tree in the backyard

And at night we would sit in a circle
everyone with a beer and cigarette fastened in their hands
and talk and laugh and poke and remember
The mosquitoes would buzz softly in our ears
just long enough for us to swat them away
and return to our family stories

In the real upstate New York is where you'd find that family
In the old broken down houses with the broken down people
With their cigarettes in one hand
and their heart in the other.