Ten Windows Up

Ten Windows Up

My first memory
Stands tall in a parking lot,
Ten stories up:
And kept in the frame of my
Grandpa’s hospital window.

How very young
We must have looked then, Grandpa:
Our small lives all gathered up beneath you,
On that patch of summer pavement,
At the ledge of your life.

You were the first to go:
I was four, almost five-
What did I know of dying?

My mom is holding
The new baby on her hip
And suddenly smiles.
“Look,” she says
To my older sister and I,
Pointing above our heads,
“There he is!”
“Count the windows,
Until you get to ten.
See your grandpa?
He is waving at you!”

And there you were,
Your right hand held up to
That infirmary glass:
Your long thin fingers spread wide
As they slowly swayed back and forth,
Back and forth,
Across the clear pane.

Oh, how very gently you
Rocked our little hearts
Cradled below you,
Ten windows down.