I sit on the floor
of their dim living room,
tray and paper plate full
of pizza before me–
the kind covered in good
stretchy cartoon cheese.
My whole family watches a movie
about dinosaurs, my grandfather 
inert on a chair behind me,
and his walker, tennis ball-bottomed,
bumps against my back.
He is big and ogrelike, old
to my toddler eyes, though 
I will later learn he is only in his fifties 
when he dies. It’s his disease 
that makes his toes contort,
twist angrily into odd positions, 
kind of like mine will someday,
so I’ll get scared 
whenever my foot cramps, worry
that maybe I have it too.
More immediately my grandmother
stoops, dutifully
uncrosses the warped digits
while he grumbles at her
and Herbie the beagle scarfs
her unattended slice.
Even now
she has a loud, happy laugh,
and that’s all I remember.