by Linda Lerner
1.
they clutch huge shovels walking down
I’d say my block but it is theirs,
men who decades ago moved into this country
not its language, staked down their Italian souls
overwriting deeds to their property
with herbs, enormous sunflowers
every variety of bloom
...no space left they keep planting
people pass admiring . . . can I have . . .
a smile, a nod gives permission
to pull up a bunch of thyme or rosemary
this garden that corners Court & Carroll streets
Brooklyn
outside their clubroom this block over which
the bandiera d’Italia flies freely from rooftops
what’s left of their neighborhood before
I and those like me came
2
they walk three abreast small dark clothed
fluttering of wives seen now & then . . .
only one nods, tips his hat slightly when I pass . . .
the men keep walking determined
the snow keeps falling
layers of ice coat the tops of hedges
the walkways men’s souls;
Egypt floats off peoples’ tongues as they pass
the men look at each other understand
what lies outside language
what my Russian-born father would have
understood why they crack down so hard
on the ice fly the old country's flag from their homes
keep shoveling securing what’s theirs
by deed by work by what cannot be tallied,
men who live in the language of each others' countries
Italy Russia Egypt
same war fought same victory to be won
Linda Lerner's Something is Burning In Brooklyn was published by Iniquity Press in 2009. Her next collection will be published by New York Quarterly Press.
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