"Your Grandfather Had Secrets" by Ava Gripp

​Ava Gripp is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She focuses on poetry and travel writing. 

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Your Grandfather Had Secrets
 
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Without you in the mountains another Midwest
mostly East, body of water
“Keep it cheap for me, Chief. Will ya?”
Any bartender smiles mirroring your tight
Irish grin another region missing you again
 
I lost you in the winter considering the canyons considering your slapstick
I'm riding with you to be alone
A Sportster or ‘Dina riding with the Angels they look
like you with their leather on
The tailpipe said, “Fuck You” and your windpipe sang Moody Blue
 I went down to the river to feel for a moment I dipped
and slashed and drowned to hear you sing your songs once more
and you said, don’t go to hell for me, too
 
Plastic septum accessory oxygen earrings catching
Closing eyes dreaming of a sixth gear you say
Revving, laughing, yelling booooooooom
With you in the hospital driving away
Only you lived for one more week
 
You had addictions and we all do I count the trees passing in obsession
One, two, blinking to see in the California pines
But there is no rest there is no miracle
Fish in the water that I cast my net to maybe catch you but
The Bells have Tolled or told me that you are gone
So go on ahead before me
 
Singing another memory Telling another story Please One more story