« Thomas Reynolds » TIPTOE THROUGH THE TOMBSTONES In June I turned eight, was too small for my big bones, the year Grandpa grabbed a ukulele and tiptoed through the tombstones. Food was scarce, and laughter more. If started, we might never have quit. Each meal could be the meal Grandpa choked down the last hard biscuit. Kids at school called me "skeleton," said I rattled in the halls. After school, I walked in the woods where not even Momma could call. Wind played songs in the grass, but our house was still dawn to dark. Grandpa couldn't walk or speak. Dying was his art. He'd worked in a plant for forty years, breathing fumes that made him sick. Momma said sometimes he came home and couldn't make a fist. "An old man is trapped inside you," my momma said, "trying to get out. Get your head out of books. Take hold of now." If there was an old man inside me, maybe he was like Grandpa Jay-- mouthing words that wouldn't come and staring into space. "Each man needs a place in this world," Grandpa used to say. "This you'll learn. Mine kept moving, Kansas to Korea, now underground, to fatten worms." Thomas Reynolds has an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University, and currently teaches at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. He has had poems published in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, Midwest Poetry Review, Flint Hills Review, The MacGuffin, The Pedestal Magazine, and The Cape Rock.