I would draw here what I know of my grandmother.

A photography in which she smiles next to her husband,
my grandfather,
A man who smiles next to her
another history.
While she is wearing my mother’s smile,
which is to say my own smile.

A connection through the time and the space,
from that photography to the present
where there are no images of us.

A connection to the present where I stand before the mirror
drawing connections with red worsted over my body,
in a language she couldn’t have ever accessed.

The map of a country she knew and doesn’t exist anymore,
the coordinates of her story.
The hands, larger and lighter,
working which is to say writing which is to say archiving,
to stop fearing paralysis.
The hair, the colors, the clothing,
everything that is holding us together
through the helix and the proteins of our blood links.

One could say I wear my grandmother as a costume,
a disguise to cheat history,
a code to defy diagnosis.
Always failing.

One could say I am repeating that I almost hated her
through whatever made us family.

That is also failure.

Coefficient of relationship, they call it.