Jenna Danoy
Over There, or the Day My Grandmother Dies, I Find Carrie Fisher
When my grandmother dies, I learn two things:
1. There are some moments that live etched on the surface of your brain, like crop circles
for someone else to maze through.
2. Carrie Fisher is shorter in person.
I tell her I am not expecting guests.
She asks me if I’ve looked in the mirror yet, because
I deserve to own what I look like. Cracked irises like
the backs of my winter hands. River tears
that sluice like ice.
In the mirror
I will find not my nose, not my hair, not my eyes
but the past.
When I lie about looking,
Carrie frowns at me,
her lips pursed like a fish I recognize
from Nonna’s Christmas Eve spread.
She tells me I have no reason to lie to someone
who has seen as much as she has, that the only person it will
fuck up
is me.
I think of Nonna’s Sara Lee cake in the freezer,
poised to catch anyone’s drop of their hat.
I don’t apologize, and for a moment I think
Carrie Fisher is proud of me,
and then she takes my hand and says
that it is okay to be afraid of how the world churns,
but I have to keep doing. She says I am worth
the stones it will throw at me,
and the difference this time is only that
I’ve been struck.
I want to say I am not afraid
of what the mirror shows,
of scars on my brain
or my arms,
only of prophecy blackened.
I don’t want to look
at my pupils hollow for years, or recall the many reasons
I can now taste the acid
in the tears pooling at the base of my chin.
Nonna was generous with her sugar bowl.
Carrie’s fingers grip mine. They are short too,
and thick, ringed with gold. For a minute,
I remember their long rounded nails scratching
at the back of my neck
up the length of my summer arms
a tickle of love from a time gilded in sepia,
soon to be entombed with the rest of my grandmother,
impenetrable.
Carrie, I ask,
how do I remember all the ways
I can cry? And instead of flinching, Carrie
takes me in her arms and tells me, honey,
if she knew how to remember, she wouldn’t be
the person I see before me. I tell her I doubt that,
but her smile gets fonder, and I see in her eyes
that she isn’t the one lying. She says, it isn’t in the past
what I’m looking for. Spectral Carrie, holding my hand,
she tells me to look out. Ringed hand to the east.
But this horizon, it’s tunnel-shaped, and even as I do so,
telescoping my hands, the grief stays loudest. My skin still crawls,
wrinkles with age I don’t own.
Carrie, I ask,
how will I know when this is over? And instead
of flinching, Carrie tells me, nothing is ever over
but someday, perhaps, you will be
over there.
When my grandmother dies, I learn two things:
1. There are some moments that live etched on the surface of your brain, like crop circles
for someone else to maze through.
2. Carrie Fisher is shorter in person.
I tell her I am not expecting guests.
She asks me if I’ve looked in the mirror yet, because
I deserve to own what I look like. Cracked irises like
the backs of my winter hands. River tears
that sluice like ice.
In the mirror
I will find not my nose, not my hair, not my eyes
but the past.
When I lie about looking,
Carrie frowns at me,
her lips pursed like a fish I recognize
from Nonna’s Christmas Eve spread.
She tells me I have no reason to lie to someone
who has seen as much as she has, that the only person it will
fuck up
is me.
I think of Nonna’s Sara Lee cake in the freezer,
poised to catch anyone’s drop of their hat.
I don’t apologize, and for a moment I think
Carrie Fisher is proud of me,
and then she takes my hand and says
that it is okay to be afraid of how the world churns,
but I have to keep doing. She says I am worth
the stones it will throw at me,
and the difference this time is only that
I’ve been struck.
I want to say I am not afraid
of what the mirror shows,
of scars on my brain
or my arms,
only of prophecy blackened.
I don’t want to look
at my pupils hollow for years, or recall the many reasons
I can now taste the acid
in the tears pooling at the base of my chin.
Nonna was generous with her sugar bowl.
Carrie’s fingers grip mine. They are short too,
and thick, ringed with gold. For a minute,
I remember their long rounded nails scratching
at the back of my neck
up the length of my summer arms
a tickle of love from a time gilded in sepia,
soon to be entombed with the rest of my grandmother,
impenetrable.
Carrie, I ask,
how do I remember all the ways
I can cry? And instead of flinching, Carrie
takes me in her arms and tells me, honey,
if she knew how to remember, she wouldn’t be
the person I see before me. I tell her I doubt that,
but her smile gets fonder, and I see in her eyes
that she isn’t the one lying. She says, it isn’t in the past
what I’m looking for. Spectral Carrie, holding my hand,
she tells me to look out. Ringed hand to the east.
But this horizon, it’s tunnel-shaped, and even as I do so,
telescoping my hands, the grief stays loudest. My skin still crawls,
wrinkles with age I don’t own.
Carrie, I ask,
how will I know when this is over? And instead
of flinching, Carrie tells me, nothing is ever over
but someday, perhaps, you will be
over there.
Jenna Danoy is a writer and editor based somewhere in time and space. Her writing can be found in Black Napkin Press, Gauge Magazine, and Concrete Literary Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter at @jenna_danoy.