Triptyque

When I wonder how men can be such bastards,
I sometimes think of my Grandmother,
Mom’s Mom.
She had a father
Who once beat her with a stick of firewood.
He would have killed her if her brothers hadn’t pulled him away.
She stayed home from school for days
From the bruises and broken ribs.
He didn’t let his wife attend her mother's funeral.
Cut up her only formal dress;
She never got to say goodbye.
Then one morning, when everyone was gone,
I can almost hear his thoughts.
“If I have cancer. If I’m gonna die, she’s coming with me.”
And he took a shotgun
And killed his wife
And then himself.
Their daughter, my grandmother,
now married with children of her own,
Never got to say goodbye.
The Bastard.

When she met my grandfather
And fell in love
She was young
Still at home.
Older than her
He had been a boy once.
That little boy
Fatherless
Scarred like her.
His mother gave him up when she married.
Her husband didn’t want to raise another man’s child.
The bastard.

So her parents raised him.
His grandparents,
Too old for a rowdy little boy,
Forgot him at church once.
He woke up alone and found his way home.
He raised himself.
Probably raised some hell.
Bootlegged a little.
Dated my grandmother’s older sister.
Then finally her.
And when she got pregnant,
I can almost hear his voice.
“No child of mine is going to grow up like I did,”
And he married her.
I never knew Grandma and Grandpa.
Mother told me about the lives they had led.
Grandpa, a mechanic, a car dealer, a “horse trader.”
Her stories sounded so old fashioned.
Grandpa.
Smoking his Dutch Masters.
Telling her to “rear on back” in his recliner.
Bringing home books for her.
My love of writing from her, from him.
A gruff, sweet man.
Fatherless,
but not a bastard.