He folded his belongings in the tangerine sunset - Meryl Perez

He folded his belongings in the tangerine sunset by Meryl Perez (20)My grandfather had fat calluses on his fingersand toes.His hands flexed into a skeleton of veinsthat were verdigrison his brass skin.He would wake up before the sun could tan the streetsand would split the bursting seam of the horizonwith his fingertips.The morning things knew him:his thud of foot,his clockwork of boneson its post-apocalyptic calm.By noon he was a power station.He would double up over the bonnet of his carstrumming the interstices of wiringsand twitching bolts,and tuning the gyrationsof the enginetohisownpalpitations.For a livinghe oversaw arteries of blue prints -trading in the currency of currents, the jolts of volts,the buzz and whirr of machinery.And when it was over,He neatly folded his limp belongings in a chestBy the tangerine sunset.In death,he was a patchworkof swollen eyes,sewn eyebrows,cut lip,shrivelled feet, hushed handsrolled in a flap of dirtone violet dusk.I imagine those calluses are no more.His knucklesNow stubborn bones. His brass skinNow taut hide. His thud of footAbsent in the dawn.His heartA dry pruneIn an empty ribcage.I imagineHis blueprints have sinceYellowedLike autumn leaves.And his granddaughter is all grown up now.