Two gasping
Quick inhalations

And then

‘You have got to learn
To wing it
Only then can we
All flock together”

She told me when I was age four

Then there was that day
The day of

Blood

They called her grandmother
I called her grandmother too

She said, ‘child,
Nothing can ever harm us
Save that which we fear
Or that which we love’

Gasp
Breath like knives
In my lungs
Grandmothers face
A mask of riteous fury

A quick inhalation
A sob

Grandmother holds me
The bad man dead
We both safe
Covered in his murderous

Blood