the sweet june air is ripe as plump orange bites
that color i never could rhyme about
yet father’s mother loves it dearer than others

adorned is she in tangerine patterns, beaded
braided jewelry reminiscent of a floridian
shop with an appeal to women seasoned
with “refined tastes”—none like that poor crop
of kentuckians grandma’s yielded from

and she never smelled like papa’s body shop neither
but rather warm vanilla perfume
i recall so well, each visit that fragrance attached
to our worn and weathered family room couch

my grandma told me she once was a writer
short stories and ditties of the like
though her ma tossed that proof of existence
right out, along with any naïve dreams containing
worlds of words and wonder, so grandma
settled for trips to the drugstore with papa
to purchase words rather than write her own