Tarnish
Read & hear audio at The Cortland Review.
Father’s father
was an Einstein, long-haired
with his shocks of white knowledge.
Passed for white in the Navy:
brushed right past the dynamite.
WWII, had seen Tokyo Bay.
Cigarette smoke now ghosted
his body, kissing deep into
wizening tawn. His whispery figure
all but pickled in whiskey,
that doused wick almost out.
Memory is now as slim--
If I reached over carpet
for a candy
that slipped, whose talons
beat me to it: then, whose hoarse
rasp, guttering, “Give grown ups
the ones that get dirty.”
Shade tree mechanic. A dealer part-
time in liquor. Married darker
Dona Murphy. “Hell on wheels,”
said neighbors, and four sons,
four daughters. Swift to whip.
Adulterer. Might have killed
that one man. And still, slips
out of hearsay, all sweet
to young me. So what
larger hand, now,
overtakes my small reach, keeping
away one that got dirty.