My Grandfather on Keeping and Reaping
The sun came raining down on the wooden shed as the barely bearable heat held me with
both her hands by my shoulders and I watched Grandfather and Uncle busy with the
skinning of a goat. I had missed the blow that met his skull between the eyes. I had
missed the gleaming of the sun’s face upon the blade that wore itself across his throat, but
now I watched as callused hands laid knives upon him and brought them out of their rest
and, as with fruit, separated the rinds from the flesh. Beneath the movement of hands and
blades, he was made of the opaque film of eggs, filled with the echoes of electric
impulses and veins that ran as silent rivers. I stood with both feet flat in the mingling of
dirt and blood and under a veil of flies. The trees were heavy with ripening fruit and their
branches bent to kiss the ground. They swayed underneath my Grandfather’s hands.
BIO
Madelin A Medina is a Dominican-American poet currently residing in Queens, New York with her husband, and young son. Her work has been published in the Newtown Literary Journal, FONT, and Cosmonauts Avenue (forthcoming). She is also a recipient of the Nancy P Schnader Academy of American Poets Award at Hofstra University.
Instagram: @madelin_a_medina