8 October 2005 | Vol. 5, No. 3

Evanston

by LEIGH STEIN

My dad would like to ship my grandmother to Oregon, but first

he calls to ask what I think about heart surgery. She'll die

if they do and she'll die if they don't and there are buckets of hyacinths

on my rooftop, and bathtubs of irises; I don't want to talk about this,

I would rather send flowers.

My grandmother gardened when she could stand, hostas crowded the paths

around the house, squirrels lived in the eaves and there were old heeled shoes

trapped beneath the floorboards of the attic. I was small in that house,

I hid from her in an orange steamer trunk, but when someone is dying

you are supposed to forgive them.

The last