Scott Simpson · Poetry

Her Pipe

Use For Kindling · source pages 67

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Source page 67

Her Pipe

Night came quiet, lamplight

flickered on the walls, and my

grandmother lit her pipe.

She sat beside him, smoke

curling into evening prayer,

two pipes, two stories.

Then she’d turn to me—

It’s time for bed, and the

story would begin.

Her voice was a landscape,

tone and rhythm alive

in the shape of our language.

And at the end— tense,

listening for danger, she would say,

“And that is why I want you to be good.”