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Advice from a Grandson

My son sits beside my mother
at the kitchen table, a sunny October morning.
She, 93, sips her coffee.
Mom has macular degeneration of the retina
says she sees shapes/shades, but we forget all that;
she is so adept at seeming to see.
Nick reaches over, says, “Mima,
try lifting your coffee cup with your left hand,”
takes the mug, places it in her left
supports from underneath while she lifts
sips, nods.
“Your right hand shakes,” he remarks
“but I notice your left hand doesn’t.
Keep practicing. This hand will get stronger;
keep practicing,” Nick grins at her,
“and soon you can be juggling like me.”

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Christine Aikens Wolfe writes novels, short stories, and poetry. Formerly a reading specialist for Pittsburgh Public Schools, Christine has published poems in Sonnetto Poesia, a bi-lingual quarterly out of Ottawa. Two of these sonnets were chosen for the anthology The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes, Friesen Press, 2013. Other poems appear in The Loyalhanna Review, Blast Furnace, Pittsburgh City Paper, Poetry Magazine, Time of Singing, Woman Becoming, and Writing on the Desk: Poems from Teachers of the WPWP. She was one of 20 poets featured in the anthology Fission of Form, where poetry linked the work of sculptors and illustrators.