"Grandmother" by Sherman Alexie

Grandmother by Sherman Alexie old crow of a woman in bonnet, sifting through the dump salvaging those parts of the world neither useless nor useful she would be hours in the sweatlodge come out naked and brilliant in the sun steam rising off her body in winter like slow explosion of horses she braided my sister's hair with hands that smelled of deep roots buried in the earth she told me old stories how time never mattered when she died they gave me her clock "Grandmother" by Sherman Alexie, from The Business of Fancy Dancing. © Hanging Loose Press, 1992. Reprinted with permission.