With a bank logo on the side under her bed;
Every few weeks she would pull it out
And threaten my mother with it:
Take me to the station in Fulda! I'm going
Home to Chicago on the next train!
She filled the bag with newspapers
And soft, fibrous photographs from the thirties; later that night,
When she unpacked, she was twenty years younger, visiting friends,
And greeted us graciously.
My great-grandmother would talk
To my brothers and I if we brought her pictures
Or found the concertina case in the closet. She had run
To Chicago when the Midwestern farms dried up;
She worked in a factory and spun
Wheels of meter with tap shoes each night.
Once she and her twin sister rolled out of a car
And into a ditch after they were picked up
By the mafia. We only heard stories
About the pretty lady in the sparkly dress;
I knew nothing of the man on the badge
In her drawer, Anthony Chmela, Supervisor,
The charming man who she married
After he gave her a baby, a baby who withered
Between them a few months later.
I was allowed to play her piano, stumbling after
LEDs above the forty-something plastic keys
That taught chords and melody to eight
Pre-programmed songs. She knew the words
And sang them on clear days, I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
Or When the Saints Go Marching In. She sang another,
About a dear Augustine, in German, and I asked her
To teach me the words in English for a long time.
But she always finished the chorus back in her own language;
She would not remember anything else.
It frightened me then, the loss of control;
I never could tell her the train station was gone.
But she had the gift to sort through all the pieces
Of memory and choose which she wanted
And which to leave in the shoe box. I wish I had
That mercy time gives, wish I could only sing about
Her voice, reaching into the well-grooved German.
I cannot repack my bags to my liking yet.
