For Grandpa Tom on his Birthday

I wrote the drafts of these prose poems earlier this year.
Tom, you've been on my mind as much as in my heart. We miss you everyday.

Ghosts & Superheros
I wonder what to say to you on those days when I can see your sadness. The quiet play beside the sofa, the ranting fights with your brother over nothing - something you cannot see. I think about the crying room, holding you against my chest during the first funeral, recoiling at the incense and feeling the weight of your breath.

We retreated to the church playground, climbing, swinging, hiding. I remember your hands on my belly, your mouth pressed up against my sweater, your baby talk to the unborn sister inside me. The black skirt and sweater, the black nylons, my own skin. Everything is tight – I feel so much pressure. You want to know about the baby but I suppose you just want to know something, anything at all. You feel kicking at your cheek and offer a curious smile, closing your eyes, resting your head against me. I already feel the pain but I have no words to make it clear. I tell you that soon you'll wake up and be the big brother just like Seamus. Everything will be different.

Seamus calls to you; he needs to run it all out. You dart off. Disappearing into the wooden fort, up the ladders, down the silver slide, swinging and swinging. Brothers in motion, racing together in the South Carolina breeze. I feel uneasy watching your legs kick up into the Angel Oak tree. You're giggling again. You move like a ghost.

When we are back after the second funeral, the second unexpected goodbye, you have more words and you repeat and repeat and repeat. “He died. Your daddy died. He's all gone. Daddy's daddy died.” It almost makes us crazy. We are spread too thin – stretched out across the country barely holding at all corners. We feel tightness in our chests - our own hearts make us afraid. I almost hit you after a bedtime shower. “You're making us too sad, you have to stop saying those things.” You don't even look frightened. I feel so empty. I am the drain in the shower, everything just passes through me. You hold my face in your slight hands, they smell like Johnson's baby soap. You say, “Please. You bring him back?” I cannot. I cannot. I cannot. We are soggy; the towels have a musty smell because I do not have time for laundry. We lay down in your bottom bunk, you in your Batman pajamas. I read Shel Silverstein. I think we've been to where the sidewalk ends. My eyes are wet and heavy. You seem so close to sleep. I kiss your tiny mouth, so sorry that I've lost my temper. You open your eyes and whisper: “I'm a superhero. I save him, I save us all.”


Protection
Seamus found the watch you gave to James at Christmas in those beautiful days before you died. The King of Jordan's seal set upon the box like a promise of protection or prosperity. Of the many gifts a father gives a son, this was precious. I found the empty box in the kids' secret room, no watch in sight. I could see how it would go instantly. The choler and defeat sinking into James's chest, the raised voice and futile stomping. He arrived moments later sweaty from running. I kissed him softly on the mouth and held his face, looking at him from that place between a mother and a wife. A hard run, he says, I had to walk some. He saw the box. I asked, was the watch in it? Knowing this could be too much, I winced. Yes, he said, and walked toward his closet with his shoulders heavy on his body. A quiet sigh. No despair, no fury - just the ritual of getting showered after work. The boys were already giggling in the water when he stepped in to rinse off, asking about their day, their school, the sunshine. He inquired about the watch and the empty box and I listened to Seamus say “under your bed.” I found it immediately and James ran his hands over Seamus's head, grateful to be home. No more mention of the purloined watch. I know how precious it is. The boys all emerge bright and shiny, a catastrophe averted.

I often feel you with us. I see you, their grandfather, in the boys' dirty hands, their interest in coins, books and flying machines. I see them how you would see them, how gentle you would be with their grief, how tolerant with their wild fractures of emotion. You didn't have a patient hand during those days when you flew from Russia to Jordan, Denver to New Jersey, offering protection and logistics. I never knew you that way. I knew the man you turned out to be. You'd always said it wasn't sexy to fly in the belly of a plane and eat food in Pakistan from roadside vendors. You were away a lot. Food on the table and such. And I think the travel made you sick. It was your job, the secretest of service. The boys and girl suffered but no more than you. Where were you? They always wanted to know. Where are you still? Here we are with our own boys and girl, and it is your hand I feel now when my heart rustles and flutters when I am lost in my own house. I know that you approved of our choices, you know why we've made them. No more sleeping on planes, living on the other side, serving faraway conglomerates. Now we all stay home protecting what is ours, yours. You are as close as our own hands.