Between two and three am we go
upside down: his feet flat
on the ground in a splay
of yogic yes as my mismatched
socks slide farther down my ankles,
heels for all to see. From between
my legs, I watch him rise
into a slow headstand, hands
at his ears, elbows two points
of a triangle. It looks like he’s swimming
and he looks straight ahead. The speed
at which he lowers down is like
the pace at which my grandfather,
eighty-six years old, eases himself
into the pool. Later, much later,
near nine am, I dream he gives me
unremarkable objects that hide
inside their seams three hundred gifts,
accompanied by a letter in his capitalized
scrawl. I awake without having read it,
though I trust it is inscribed in the air
between the headstand and the floor.
panache, perhaps 