March 26, 2013

 
The son of Italian immigrants, he was

the first generation born in America.

He grew up in Connecticut,

joined the army during the war.

He spent the next few years curled in the belly

of a B-17, hanging miles above Europe.

Black ack-ack rocked his cold, claustrophobic world

while he watched Dresden burn

from inside his tiny glass ball.

He survived.

This little ball-turret gunner lived.

His pictures in the newspaper proved it.

He moved to Brooklyn where he met a girl.

They got married and had three kids,

a son, a daughter, and a baby boy.

They lived in the suburbs of Long Island

until he died when his heart gave up,

Before I was born.

 

Another son was born in Brooklyn.

The first American in his family too.

He had polio and could not fight in the war.

Instead, he was raised inside an iron lung

and spent most of his childhood in hospitals.

He had only the nurses to talk with, and so

he didn’t share with his brothers their

broken Italian accents.

Doctors said he would never walk, he was too weak.

But he did, he walked anyway.

He worked in a factory, sewing hat boxes.

He met a girl.

They had a son. Then they had another and a baby girl.

He had a family. He left his family.

In those days, divorce was illegal. Divorce was shameful.

They drove across state lines to file the papers.

He remarried a German nurse

and was much happier before he died.

Before I was born.

 

My grandfathers were young once, were even my age once.

But before I could study the lines on their faces,

the way their eyes crinkled when they smiled,

before I could hear their voices,

before I could remind them of themselves,

they passed their lives on to me

through their blood and then they were gone.

Before I was born.