My Small Grandmother
My small grandmother
Who did not smile
Wore her mortal trial
Neatly on her shoulders
While somewhere in her dry silence
My grandfather’s shadow hovered
Fleshless as her bony Yiddish
Grandmother all gristle and wrinkles
Outlasted Czarist Russia
Survived the Cossacks’ plunder
Brought here her Sabbath’s wonder
Five sons and my mother
Now she is remembered
Late in my December
Seated at the window
Near the warm radiator
Her round eyes drinking
The bay’s dark waters
Its blinking shadows swimming
Starstruck in the moonlight
I know not what embraced her
As she stared in seeming torpor
Perhaps her mother’s figure
From a long-thawed Russian winter
Or the eyes of hostile soldiers
Fixed sternly on her father
As he held her closely to him
Fearing they might harm her
Or in another darkness
Its outlines even dimmer
The hush of three lost infants
Their bodies still within her
Tonight I miss her
12/12-12/17/96, 1/12-1/14/97, 1/7-1/l8/98, 8/22/98
Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter.
Posted with permission.
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