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For my 6th birthday my grandfather gave me a Rubik's cube
I will always be able to remember its edges Hold it in my hands
Heft the weight of an overwhelming problem.
I remember him telling me about it, How a Rubik's cube has 43 quintillion,
252 quadrillion, 3 trillion,
274 billion, 489 million,
856 thousand possibilities.
He told me it can be really confusing sometimes, but to look at the center squares
as a reminder of what color each side should be.
shift
We are celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary He and grandma are dancing a dance
that only fragile legs and wrinkled hands know how to.
That type of happiness took him 70 years to earn.
The white side of the cube is solved.
shift
He tells me about how he met grandma His college friends had a sunset picnic
She was there, As beautiful as an unsolved puzzle
She was a redheaded scramble on orange tile sky.
shift
The hospital walls are blue The nurses explain that his memories have
become jumbled strangers in family portraits
pictures with mismatched faces. Alzheimer's has made his mind into a Rubik's
cube.
shift
He is a highway patrolman His car is white,
No no, it's blue He worked there for 30 years
some nights he still does. Time is a complicated algorithm.
shift
The pills he holds are yellow and red
and green the weight of their color causes his hand
to drop I try to shift his tiles back into place
But people don't have center squares. His mind is a hospital bed divided by zero.
shift
My sister's wedding is white but he doesn't know why.
shift
World War Two is every color the south pacific is blue,
the islands are green There is so much red.
shift
Grandpa, Table,
Cube, Names scrambled California
Guitar grapefruit highway Wedding bell wars
Stick shift rifles South pacific mirrors.
shift shift shift
shift shift shift shift shift
The temperature of his hands is blue. Death is colorless.
I will always remember his edges Hold him in my hands
Heft the weight of an overwhelming problem.
I was unable to attend his funeral, I never found out the algorithm to solve him.
A Rubik's cube has over 43 quintillion possibilities. A casket only has one.