woman of inadequate means by the poet's word choice. He tells us she would "rock quietly and hum" until her "swelled" hands calmed (Adame 462). Her hands are swollen from hard work and perhaps living in a home with inadequate heat. However, Adame uses irony to demonstrate that despite his grandmother's condition the house he remembers was never a cold one because it was filled with her warmth. As he writes, "mornings, / sunlight barely lit / the kitchen / and where / there were shadows / it was not cold" (Adame 462). One would expect it to be cold in the morning with little sunlight in the room, but this irony reinforces the memory of grandmother's house as one filled by her unique brand of warmth.
The action in the poem is also used to reinforce the image of the speaker's grandmother as a woman who provided sustenance and nourishment for her family. The speaker relies on the senses, including sound, to convey the memory of his grandmother as one who nourished him. He used to wake to the sounds of her nourishment, "she quietly rolled / flour tortillas / the 'papas' / crackling in hot lard / would wake me" (Adame 462). Sound is directly referred to but smell is implied. It is highly likely that upon waking to the "crackling" noise of the potatoes frying in hot lard the speaker could also enjoy their smell. Such images setup
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