We are our grandmothers
standing outside a closed door
in the poetry reading hall waiting

for our voices to be heard. We hear
voices inside and jiggle the knob
and pound on the locked door.

Her white hair fluffs around her face.
One knee swollen like a shitake
throbs as she leans on a cane.

My shoulders shrink under the sheet
of white hair hanging to my waist
as my feet flame like fire on the walker.

You are discriminating against old
ladies and daughters of immigrants, I shout.
The door squeaks open and we file in.

Tap tap tap, we shuffle to the podium,
our words wailing off the walls
and hands clapping like the waves

that washed the ships up on the shore
carrying our ancestors from foreign lands
so we can be free to speak our truth.
                        

Her big henna hair piled high,
mama rocks in her chair
as the redheaded mother
and daughter rock the stage
of the Grand Ole Opry.

Grandpa tell me about 
the good ole days, the Judds
harmonize as Mama sings
along and daddy looking
like the Oak Ridge Boys 
with long white hair
and beard reclines in a vinyl
La-Z-Boy the same material
as Naomi’s red dress.

Wearing black like Wynona,
I sing off key as they harmonize:
You been lookin' for love 
all around the world.
Baby, don't you know
 that this country girl's still free?
Why not me? Why not me?

Daddy’s been gone a year
and mama lies in the hospital
bed in the living room
every bone in her back broken
from Melanoma, while Naomi
in remission from Hepatitis C 

prances around the stage in red,
blue and gold gowns
and Wynona dressed in black
cured of laryngitis growls, Grandpa, 
tell me about the good old days,
at their televised farewell tour.

Mama lies beside daddy in the cemetery
while I sit up in bed watching the news
a month after my eightieth birthday
and two weeks after my fall
when Naomi’s daughters announce:
We lost our beautiful mother to mental
illness as she lies in the morgue.

I hobble on my walker, then eat
dinner as the camera catches
Wynona boarding her bus
for the tour without her mother.
She would want this, she says.
I change the channel to watch
Wynona’s sister, a mirror image
of her mother tell Dianne Sawyer:
Suicide. A firearm was involved.