BY THE WATER

After a day swimming in the lake at Patchogue

My mother would hear her father’s car horn;

She’d climb on the running board and ride home

Clinging to the car. What model was it, I wonder;

How far did they go? Did they talk on the way?

Did she close her eyes and listen to the wind

Or did she watch the world flowing by?

How easy it would have been to ask her!

My father’s mother when she was young

Danced by some river in Galicia.

There was an emperor then: Franz-Joseph

She rather liked him. I imagine it must be something

To have an emperor. Perhaps you feel sorry for folk

In ordinary countries, who have only a king

Or the poor people who must get by

With an archduke, an elector, a president.