She said somethin' a decade after she was gone Hospital parking lot - my dad, the radio off How do you hold a ghost you never really knew? Just Werther's Gold, stale cigarettes, and Ohio afternoons She kept his childhood in boxes by her bed She held onto who he was 'cause she'd forgotten who she'd been G-Maw, the smoke was always there before you were Settled in the curtains, in the carpet, in the blur You left the candy out for us to stay and play I took it without knowing what the air could not say She scrubbed the bathrooms with a mop and came home late With other people's pill bottles tucked inside her waist A chain of Virginia Slims and something wrong behind her eyes A diagnosis no one gave her 'til the end of her life She loved him - hard to believe it - in the only way she could Amber cherries on his skin Swearing the lesson was good for him "Trust no one. Not even me." G-Maw, the smoke was always there before you were Stained into the curtains, in the carpet, in the blur You left hard candy out for us to stay and play I took it without knowing what the air was tryin' to say She drove Grandpa out with all the claws she had Married off the house before the papers dried And when a sickness took him away from him her replacement threw out what dad had left of his own dad She tried to take me away too I was born as somebody new And I wonder if she thought that she could do it right this time The way a person swears they've changed Right before they don't He started with a mop too - same halls, same fluorescent hum Taught himself to build little worlds out of nothing, one by one Now he keeps his own name on his own prescription bottles Bipolar, schizophrenic - treated, breathing, calm G-Maw, the smoke was always there before you were Buried in the curtains, in the carpet, in the blur He took what you gave him, but he laid some of it down clearing what the air was scared to say He broke the chain - well, mostly - Mom's still there beside him now I just knew your sweetness I didn't understand Until I did Porch swing in the Ohio sun Candy dish and ashtrays, gold and smoke G-maw, You were someone's little girl once G-maw, I wonder who you were before you broke
