I don’t remember my grandmother much

but I remember

she refused to use a cane

so she walked with a hunched back, 

that made her look like 

an evil cartoon lady from the 90s

the hunch kept getting worse —

and then she died

At her funeral, I kept wondering

if the curve on her pyre was the hunch

she could have avoided 

if she accepted the cane, and if

not accepting the help you need 

runs in the family, and shuddered to think 

if I’ll develop a hunch, too, if my bones will be 

full of regrets and self-sufficiency?