My grandparent's house ten-kid-large and sinking on the corners of remembrance Remodeled now, to ...tenements
Honeycomb ...the remnants
Irish immigrant and Scottish orphan's child She sang on the ferry He fell in love "The rest is the history of us...." Wide as the Connecticut River, grieving-- in their sunset.... ____
This-- chair is his
I am afraid of it-- of his learning of the shiny badge pinned to his coat of his dying... Golden leather of it soothes his memory-- of another continent of the once warmth-- of a distant hearth so darkened now-- where his head once rested ...his hands and, I fear-- his mind....
I will not sit in it as if he will come back, to take his place I am afraid of him-- with his chair-- all worshipful and empty like a high place, abandoned to the heart attack not for grandchild play Seat of Authority still stamped beside the standing cold-- brass ashtray Pipe smoke imagines itself against the ceiling in the words of Yates and Milton He read to them and somehow--
Paradise is Lost.... _____
This house is cold now-- even in the summer-- cold Worn as only large families wear The War of waiting shadows --four brothers who were spared
Anna Mae, in charge, too young, worries in abrupt dark of dinning room Her face, haunted-- an archway-- ever empty by the large and ghostly table covered by its web of lace-- a bridal veil of Catholic impossibility... Anna Mae, held hostage by her thoughts of darling, Sean...
Aunt Lil's “breakdown” with cigarette and thorazine quaking quiet in her corner
Aunt Nell, as blind as smart-*** hell ironing, darning with threads that thatch the wounded socks Holds it all together, scolding-- Brought the welcomed jelly donuts sneered as Yankees clobbered Boston all-- while drinking yellow ale
Uncle Eddie-- laughing hoarsely cracks nuts over a wooden bowl
Both of my grandparents died a year apart in the midst of The Great Depression, leaving four of their kids below the age of twelve. The family struggled through it and WWII that followed.
My Grandfather was a police officer as were a number of his descendants.
The house enfolded them, sending their stories like flares across the generations.