Grandma Rose and The Life of Silence

Grandma Rose and The Life of Silence

Grandma Rose led an unremarkable life,
Silent like a cloistered nun or Buddhist monk,
Sitting hidden on a wooden crate behind
The glass display case of women’s handkerchiefs,
White hair pulled up in a bun above a round expressionless face.
“A size to fit,” she uttered when rousing for a customer,
An indication that Russian peasants weren’t as exacting
As many other immigrants in the Promised Land beside gilded streets.

What was it that you saw old woman?
The shock of your husband lowered
From his basement perch,
Suicide of high blood sugar
Or depression, that most American of maladies?

Why wouldn’t you speak or show emotion?
Were you considering some esoteric personal philosophy?
Or had you happened on the meaninglessness of it all,
The certain void to follow or the wizened ways
Of some all-knowing ancient deity?