So loud. You are a loud person,
immobile though you permeate the room,
dictating all our actions from your command post in the kitchen.
We roll our eyes while you bicker with Granddad,
fights you've been saving up, wrong and illogical,
and he rolls his eyes back at us.
We do as we're told, and you silence dissenters,
and we eat all the food that God put on our plates,
and start drinking right after lunch.
You rotate from whom you demand your next
vodka and diet tonic,
hoping that'll stop us from keeping count.
And the later it gets, the louder you rant,
how all of your grandchildren are grown and gone
and we don't come home for Christmas.

And you may not know it, but we tell each other
what you say behind various backs.
We know you bottle up your grudges,
hoard them like the crap you buy from catalogs and Walmart,
hoping someone asks you about them soon.
Still bitter about all the stupid choices your daughters have ever made,
Still angry about a steady, ongoing, happy 25-year marriage, because,
something about raising your grandchildren like insensitive brats.
It's the fault of the father and not their own
at least until they're out of the room.
Your heathen grandchildren getting married and grown
and we don't write thank-you letters.

Yet, despite your disapproval, 
despite your loving hatred, I confess,
I still play card games over breakfast,
love cheese grits and hate potato salad.
I still love puzzles and writing poems,
and I never practice my stupid scales and arpeggios. 
I miss the warm Florida boulevard.
It isn't much, but at least I have fond memories.

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Author guidance for This poem

Any grandmother or family related poems welcome :)

updated Dec 12 '10 by Rac7hel