My Grandparents
There are no photographs
of who they were
what they did
One was beautiful
with hair like the sun
setting in late August
but more pale
Another was slow, a third fat
with fingers so strong
they never let go
The last, a wanderer
who became lost searching
for work in Galicia
They come to me
as I sit after breakfast
in the kitchen
and I tell them
the truths I have found:
Time is a windmill
the world exhales each day
inhales each night
Friends come to us
when we are dying
or struggling with mysteries
or joyfully shedding our skin
in summer on a beach
somewhere
Don’t worry, I tell them,
we are never alone
And I tell them stories,
true ones, like this:
Once in an airport
while I sat alone, writing
a poem about Primo Levi’s
death in Turin
An Asian woman walked
back and forth near me
singing deep in her throat
de de tay
de de tay tay
de de tay
and she stayed by me
singing
singing
until I finished
the lines about Levi’s
guilt and forgiveness
in the moment before
he threw himself down
to his death
on the stairs
in Turin
She did not see me
hearing her song
as she walked there
singing
her song
as deep in her throat
as Jesus or love
as deep in my throat
as it was in hers
de de tay
de de tay tay
de de tay
And when I tell my grandparents
this story, they sit
in their brown suits
and dark babushkas, smiling
and nodding as if they
understood my words, as if
my English was their Polish
—About the poet, John Guzlowski
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