FOR MY ONLY LIVING GRANDFATHER

FOR MY ONLY LIVING GRANDFATHER

You'll know the poem I'm sure

I'll write when you die

If I can talk with you

even once

as something more than acquaintances.

We'll be standing near

the old storm-cellar, and our

hands will smell like

gun oil, our breath still

heavy with the morning's fried eggs

and coffee.

Our boots and our jeans

will be wet from

the long grass on the hill coming up

from the barn where we've just

finished

rummaging the morning away

for an old horse shoe

you promised

I could take home to hang over my door.

We'll look back suddenly, hearing the

speckled-gray doves

spill through the loft door and

rise past the clearing, on higher up

the mountain; we'll

take it as a sign that our luck has been

granted anyway.

We'll lean both our bad backs together

to pry open the old storm-cellar door

and peer into the darkness once

before you go on down alone

to check one last place

to find something I can keep.