Grandma
by Ralph Fletcher
from Relatively Speaking: Poems About Family
On the first warm morning
she’s kneeling in the dirt,
smiling and humming
like she does making bread.
Grandma’s planting tulip bulbs
that are almost the same color
as her own worn knuckles.
Watch how her hands work
the dark mounds of soil
in that dirty confusion
of bulb and knuckle,
knuckle and bulb.