The Massage. (testaments).

   At first I imagine I am a lump of dough,
   kneaded by a baker's proficient hands.
   But later, as I lay swaddled in sheets,
   I realize that what I feel
   is something more like my grandmother's
   description of oleo.
   Oleo, she revealed to me long ago in the
   warmth of her small kitchen,
   used to be as white as Crisco.
   Since most people prefer the color of butter,
   and most marketers want to please people,
   each package was sold with a capsule of yellow dye,
   which was kneaded into the oleo
   much as I'm being kneaded today.
   I would like to think that when my massage is over,
   my body will feel as smooth
   as a perfectly blended package of oleo.
   But thinking of oleo,
   it occurs to me that if my grandmother was alive,
   she would rub my back
   and I would not need to be here,
   listening to a recording of ocean waves
   in a dark room with scented candles.
   She might even consent to working
   a bit of oleo into my dry skin.
   It is a long way from my grandmother's kitchen
   to a massage table in a fashionable spa,
   and I wonder if my investment in a stranger's hands
   would bewilder her as much as oleo must have
   the first time she reached for it on a grocery shelf.
   I suppose that reach may have felt
   like some act of infidelity to all she once knew,
   and I wonder, too,
   if she grieved for her grandmother then
   as I ache for mine now.