A Challenger Approaches

A Challenger Approaches

It was a normal family night,

kids played,

cards were dealt,

adults swore like sailors,

until I said it.

The little pale yellow country house,

surrounded by a car-swallowing ditch,

with a gravel-padded and car-littered yard,

had been at peace.

Had.

The kitchen was still,

picture frame-coated walls

gleaming back at me.

Doom

encircles me.

Strong, my voice,

tall, I stand,

in front of flabby destruction.

Round as a beach ball

and as temperamental as a dragon.

Her mixed olive skin droops,

with folds upon fold,

shrouding her face.

As a freshly cleaned pair of glasses

sits on her wrinkly nose.

Inhales, sharp and shallow

rush past my ears,

never let go by onlookers.

“Never challenge Grandma,”

From the crowd,

my cousin mouths.

Her pale–barely tanned skinned–

and her long brown hair

did nothing to hide her smirk.

It was a bit late for the warning,

I did.

I did challenge Grandma, that is.

Hope dies.

Onlookers take steps back,

pet dogs whine,

and tick-tocks of the clock loudly chime.

I don’t back down.

Affronted and brave,

courageous in the face of danger,

certain death,

abnormally sure of myself.

Grandma stares back,

hazel brown and eagle-eyed,

despite her age.

Her floral nightshirt was still dusted

with the graduated white remains

of baby powder.

Seconds pass,

Grandma smiles.

Her wheezy laugh,

damaged by years of smoking,

calms all.

Hissing exhales ruffle my braids,

and pets pant, pant, pant, happily –

crisis averted.