I will always remember her
as the dish she dropped when I told her,
how the sink wasn’t yet filled enough with water
to buffer the clatter of ceramic on stainless steel.

Kevin said yes, Mom Mom.
I’m getting married

And the only excitement to be found
in my grandmother’s kitchen that Easter morning
was in the exclamation points
on the advertisements of the sprawled newspaper on the table.

She became the dish that should’ve broken.
She became a Jesus with red, glowing eyes.
She became the nuclear half life of the plastic green grass
she would put in my candy basket.

I became a ripped and strewn ring of rosary beads,
her last birthday card that I threw away,
the back porch swing
left dangling when the chain broke.

You have a gay grandson
or you have none at all.

Then I left,
both our bodies hardening
into gleaming pale, blue plastic
both of us becoming
the Easter egg
that was placed in the bush

and then immediately forgotten.