Grandmother Kooser had a collection
of tiny glass bottles, the kind for perfume,
arranged in the sun on the sill of a window
partway up the stirs. She’d pass them
twice every day, first stepping painfully
down from her room in the morning, one hand
on the bannister, one on her cane, its tip
counting the steps, and then, in the evening,
heavily climbing back to her bed.
She rented that shadowy house, so little
light or color in it anywhere, the furnishings
all grays and browns, with somber rugs
and the black horsehair settee upon which
my grandfather had lain down to rest
and then died. But those bottles brightened
that place on the staircase, with pale pinks
and blues, gay yellows and greens, their
crystal stoppers sparkling, and though much
had been taken from her she had this,
a moment at that window twice each day,
in which she’d pause, and catch her breath,
and sometimes lift a bottle to the light.