Ode to Ashy Knees

Argan, shea butter, & castor. A thousand ways
to soften, mist & moisture, but nothing to supple
knees: crease immune to chemical peel & heel mask,
instrument of pray & beg. I cough up aerosol
in wet white clouds, bleach them into beauty
slick as slobbered bone. The Greeks thought nymphs
lived in the corrugated bark of ash trees, Oread beings
who weaned baby Zeus on honey & goat milk—
my own ashen trunks are all hair & fairy-less,
demanding endless nourishment, as I did,
striking the butt of my spoon on the table
and willing my grandmother’s ladle to materialize
from steam. My grandmother, whose knees
are sandpaper, slabs of irrevocably hardened clay.
Knees sturdy as the concrete guts of a house, purple
as silk drapes spinning off mites through the open window.
Knees of service kept her stomach and her siblings’ full,
held her body afloat, two creaky wooden boats
cast at the feet of chairs where foreign men sat,
their heads tipped back as she lapped the spare change
secreting from their pockets. She’s the one who taught me
anything rich is worth paying for, praised heavy
cream & serum-whipped skin, whatever fills & fills
the cracks. She taught me to soak my own knees
in lemon & a dollar coin of sunlight, tender & clean
as hers couldn’t be. My earliest memories,
balloon-bellied in her bathtub, shying lower limbs
in dish-soap bubbles from her fist of pumice
& promised slap of pacifying oil—we learn to soothe
what stings. Smooth what can’t be soothed.