My grandmother bootlegged liquor
after her first husband died,
and she drank beer at her kitchen table
instead of Sunday tea,
trying to forget the things
she never talked about.
Her second husband
become a sad story about cancer
told to me by my mother,
while her third husband
taught their cats to stay away
from people, and he died before her too,
leaving behind beer concealed in coffee cups
she drank alone,
listening to fiddle music through old radio static,
dancing with ghosts
in memories that haunt worse
in a living mind than a dead brain.