I love this piece Audy! It's so layered, I'm not sure I can do this piece justice for a review - but I'll attempt!!
The narrative is really loosely hung together in these knitted pieces of who the "grandfather" is or was and how that relates to the speaker and the world. I like how you rolled from one thought to the next, and how sometimes there weren't transitions, but the reader just needed to follow along to the next thought. There were some portions that seemed clearer to me than others.
Two themes that ran through the poem were this idea of a modern poverty - that we are poor in different ways and just trying to make it through.
I like that not having pots vs. having way too many pots thing. My dad talks about sometimes not having enough soap growing up, and now he sort of hoards it, he always needs to have like 20 bars of soap in the house because he never wants to be without it. That's the sort of feeling I got from that portion - and I think just that simple illustration says a lot about him, without necessarily spelling it out. It also evokes empathy for the character, although he seems sort of brusk in earlier part of the stanza.
and then theme two: there's also this theme of death, skin shedding, and lighting fires to stop the shedding. I'm not sure I completely got the relation from fire to skin shedding. At first I though maybe "lighting yourself on fire" was straight up alcohol, or other ways we numb the world and feelings around us/maybe related to lack of empathy. But I'm not so sure. You also use the skin shedding image in different ways - we are dying, we are disconnected, we are poor, we are losing ourselves.
I interpreted the poem to be a reflection on a Grandfather who has passed, and sort of comparing his own life to the speaker's life. The speaker finds that the Grandfather was worried about these physical limitations of life and compensated by buying up physical things like pots; maybe at the cost of human relationship in some cases. The grandchild looks at their own life and sees a different but similar lack around them; and a sort of meaningless almost to life. Ironically despite these experiences and possessions we build up - in the end we're just shed skin; ashes. And out of all the things their grandfather gave them in wisdom and maybe in possession they long for a hug - the downright physical presence of their grandfather - again ironic because in life we are so conscious of our bodies decaying that they seem almost useless/meaningless and attached from our identity. In the end the speaker consider's what their own children might consider them when they're dead - maybe they'll see dusty bones/lack of a physical body and identity - or maybe they'll seem something/someone transcendant; escaping on metal wings.
That's my best attempt at an interpretation - and I know there was more in there that I missed! I do like that you carry themes through consistently. Your imagery in here wasn't always thrilling and unique - (except in the "million people" stanza I was imagining the different skin tones and lives and celebrations) - but your word choice is great. I'm a big fan of quite a few turns of phrase you have in here. Your pacing too - made the poem the lively, because you had some heavy compact detailed stanzas, and then you'd give the reader a break with some short succinct lines - nice!
That section about I could have been a million people - evokes for me sort of a rebirth/reincarnation Eastern-Religion vibe. That goes really well with this shedding skin stuff too! Buddhism teaches that one needs to not be attached to the body/physical and the metaphor of skin slipping off as we go towards death is melds really well into that. Not sure if that was intentional or not - but I appreciated the thoughts there.
"my ghosts, gag on ghosts" gosh that's great phrasing!
Some parts I couldn't quite follow:
"cruel and cool an ignorance" - I'm not sure if you meant "and ignorant" or "cruel and cool [semi-colon] an ignorance" but I couldn't quite follow the train of thought.
"eyes raped constantly" - like I get what that could mean; though I'm not sure if the reader is to understand that in a sexual/lusting way - or if it's more metaphorical? It's an impactful line, but more one that I read and say "WHAT?!" rather than "Oh, interesting, I get it!" adding a line preceding to transition into it, or after to clarify would be helpful.
"what if what i really wanted right now was to be
with you in your arms somehow"
-> I get this, but it seems like a sort of clunky way to phrase it; perhaps because of all the "w" sounds; especially starting with the "what if what" which is hard to follow.
Lastly, the metal wings didn't quite connect for me; it could have been an allusion to military planes and then also connects to the body/soul disconnect and the short-term use of our bodies, but it didn't seem quite woven into the poem enough - and I wanted to see it a bit more explicitly linked to the fire/skin metaphors earlier on. It comes into the poem three times in italics and off-set so I feel like it must be very important to the meaning of the poem, but I just couldn't figure it out.
Overall, this is just an awesome poem, and the type that you can just read and read and unpack. I'd love to hear what you're intended meaning was and if I was totally off-base in my interpretation or if I got some of it right. 
Thanks for sharing your poetry Audy! <3
~alliyah
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