Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I sit upright. 

In a near-feverish state, I think about my mother’s mother. I think about how we never met. I worry that we were never able to experience the alchemical, magical interchange of self. To ferry history along buried waterlines, to fill the wells of ourselves with one another.

I go to the bathroom and splash water on my face. I can see the seams that run from my hairline to the base of my chin; I can see her peeking out from beneath the stitches. Mary.

Returning to repose, blood vessels detonate behind my eyelids in quiet rebuttal.

Cracked sidewalks buckle under the weight of the freezing-and-melting cycle,

The crows scare away pests for the summer.

Smoking chasms of the core falter in plain sight,

Excuse me, sorry, sew it back up.

Patterned folds reach eye-corners, spreading temple-wards

Real time moves quietly and puddles on purpose.

When I look at myself in the daylight, appraising the markings of time on my visage, I think of the grandmother I know. I think of all the world’s matriarchal links, running veinlike below earth’s surface.  

Before next year I will see her. We are planning to sit down together again, to exchange those things through eyes and hands we cannot speak.

My dear Lizzie, 

It’s been too long since we have written.  Don’t know where the time goes too. Although, when I look in the mirror, I have a pretty good idea.