I'm lucky my parents were peasants
sturdy stock and stout bones
had they been like me, they wouldn't have made it
had they been like me, I wouldn't be here

on roads where ashes roil with dust
where bodies bloom in the rain
where the dead blossom of youth
froze for days, and for a few hours

no one was old
the world was all wounded youths
why did my grandparents survive, why?
was it because they felt the burden of generations

of the unborn, of those to come
in five, in thirty, in fifty years?
. . . and those who died, they were like
pruned branches, light and free

. . . and only on my father's side
the cancer of legacy
women's tears like women's fists
proud heads which always fall first

these were women unused to standing for long
because the veins on their legs exploded
who were unable to weep long hours
without going blind, or mad

you had to know how to do everything
tend wounds bake bread dig trenches
nobody taught them
they had to learn for themselves

and they wrote poems—not like before
shorter now, nearly wordless
because they no longer had metaphors
only the clay and the sun

father asked: write a poem about me
how I was young, how I was
played the guitar, chased a soccer ball in the field,
bouncing it with my head high into the sky

how I returned home
to our apartment
that smelled of oatmeal and Saturday laundry
with a tapestry hanging on the wall

(on the tapestry
a man and a woman
woven in red
ride a pair of black horses)

no, father, I kept saying, I can't
I don't know how to write about it
it's too close
it's too close, and so it doesn't seem real

alright, he sighed, and went to work
exchanged his fedora for a baseball hat
his guitar for a church choir and soccer for a car
nobody cooked oatmeal anymore, but the tapestry stayed

and then he stopped asking
he realized that I'll never write about him
but we have a cat, he chuckled
write about a cat
a red cat with white spots
a red cat with a white voice
if I don't make it into your writing, at least let the cat remain

woven out of air