Visits

When the August moon is not yet whole, my grandmother comes to visit. We miss you, I think, and she answers back in the breeze, rustling the leaves, which I mistake for rain. I feel her pressing on my shoulders with a lightness. Listening to a song about loss, I cried the night before she came, my tears landing soft on a blanket. In the park I find a book and flip it open to a poem about ghosts. Even the flies stop buzzing. The squirrels hang from skinny branches like acrobats. I too take risks, because I know she’s here to catch me. Things once lost reveal themselves: a peach, a pharmacist, a hairbrush. The saddest part is knowing she cannot stay longer. She goes each time, when the moon is full.