On My Grandmother’s Sewing Machine

by Dash Harris Machado

She grazes my neck
“You know you had a hernia when you were two years old. I was so scared. They wanted to operate on you but you got a fever, so I took you from there. Your belly-button went down good.” That was over 30 years ago and she still reminds me from time to time. And I let her.
On my grandmother’s sewing machine.
She tells me the first and last time my grandfather attempted to hit her. She stabbed him. Then nursed his wounds. And that was that.
On my grandmother’s sewing machine, the beaded curtain sways in the breeze as if in harmony with the buzz of the bobbin.
“Get down from there!” It was too late. I fell straight on my face. I climbed directly across my grandmother’s sewing machine, over her napping head, found my footing and then lost it right on top of that TV.
The tiles were mismatched in the room where my grandmother’s sewing machine is. The tables are wooden. The shutters are frosted glass. The sofa is plastic. The cup is tin. The fan creaks. After the water comes in after 4am and goes out at 11pm, the faucet still leaks. My grandfather is gone. I call for her to throw down the keys. I find her sitting at her sewing machine.