Grace

Watching the women that I used to watch in my childhood, the word grace brings my grandmother to mind. The way that she moves her fingers over her work, shuffling through papers, cutting up vegetables, whatever. She has the calm smile on her face a lot of the time that she's cooking or gardening. I love watching her work. The tranquility that emits when she's at work seems to be enough to put my mind to ease. Specifically, when it's summer time and we're sitting in the screen house, she's writting a letter to her brother in Texas. The shadows cast by the trees pass over her face as the wind blows. The glare off of her glasses as she flipped the paper over to continue her comments on the back drew my attention to her. Her blue eyes looked up into mine and she smiled, her freckled face and red hair catching the light as it shifted again. I love that look, that absolutely reassuring look. She is a graceful woman, in a completely different manner from all the dancers that I'd observed in the past. It was a pressence more so than a look

grace is a lovely word. it reminds me of the gentle curve of your naked back and the quiet ease of your long fingers as they run across my thighs. the way your hair falls in your eyes when it grows long, and the upslope at the edges of your lips. the pale skin inside your elbows. where your hair tapers to a small point at the nape of your neck and the hard tendons in your groin. your arm muscles when you are ignoring them, doing something like stroking my hair. the pink triangle of tongue that darts out over your lips sometimes, and your long eyelashes brushing against the skin just below your eyebrows. all these things are graceful, grace is something i can imagine, almost touch, smell, taste. it is not an ineffable thought, it is not the sudden unrest of love.