My Mother and Grace

It is the south that brings my mother
and my father’s mother, Grace,
together.
Grace’s family is from Greenville, too.
So my mother
is home to her, in a way her own kids
can’t understand.
You know how those Woodsons are, Grace says.

The Woodsons this and the North that
making Mama smile, remember
that Grace, too, was someone else before. Remember
that Grace, like my mother, wasn’t always a Woodson.
They are home to each other, Grace
to my mother is familiar
as the Greenville air.
Both know that southern way of talking

without words, remember when
the heat of summer
could melt the mouth,
so southerners stayed quiet
looked out over the land,
nodded at what seemed like nothing
but that silent nod said everything
anyone needed to hear.
Here in Ohio, my mother and Grace
aren’t afraid

of too much air between words, are happy
just for another familiar body in the room.
But the few words in my mother’s mouth
become the missing after Odell dies. Different
than either of them has ever known.
I’m sorry about your brother, Grace says.
Guess God needed him back and sent you a baby girl.

But both of them know
the hole that is the missing isn’t filled now.
Uhmm, my mother says.
Bless the dead and the living, Grace says.
Then more silence
both of them knowing
there’s nothing left to say.