LOGOS
for Anna Kontogeorge
As in all my dreams since her passing, her face
was turned away from me. But in this dream, my
grandmother eased around, a stream of white
fire steaming from her arms, which she spooled
toward me like bolts of organza.
We stood on the veranda of what almost
seemed my childhood house, but this one
was made of layered, wet paper.
Her hands, outstretched, held a cake, my birth-
day only weeks away. But it wasn't cake, instead
she'd curved slabs of turkey into what seemed
a cake. On top, she'd carved crisp flesh
into the words, "Happy Thanks."
Below them, a precise ribbon of skin
waved to herald a fete (or fate?).
She'd passed away Thanksgiving Day.
Was this gateau the harvest of her
Eucharist-Greek for "Thanks"-? I
pondered the flesh word, knowing that in life
her English often omitted endings.
Had she meant "Thanksgiving," still swimming
her linguistic limbo in afterworld rivers?
Morning: her afterglow persists, palpable
as her palm, informing a different read:
as the end of another year
nears, another Dean-layer shed, it is thanks
I bathe in, formed by its currents.
-Dean Kostos