Lunch with Grandma

We stand together,
the four of us, generations apart,
in my grandma's living room
smiling.

We share the same blood,
the same high cheek bones,
round face, freckles, eye shape,
and laugh.

A warmth runs through me as our bodies
confess to one another of our shortcomings
and our desires from
lives lived apart.

I see myself in these women.
Carol, Arlene, Grandma, and Me.
I have lived a very different life,
removed from most of them.

Yet we are still the same.
I can say I know them
because I know
myself.