A VARIETY OF THINGS ABOUT MAX

My grandfather Max grew up on a farm

With ten brothers and sisters and

A very great number of ducks. This

Was in the uncertain lands, then

Part of Austria's Poland but now

Ukrainian. A tossed coin sent him

To America where, he became a tailor

And a cutter, turning huge bolts of cloth

Into coats. His children played

With giant spools. Some weeks

The cutters never went home but slept

On the giant tables or under them.

For some years he owned a factory

On West 39^th Street in Manhattan.

Growing up in Poland

He’d helped his father make wine

In Brooklyn he had a garden

And grew plums, peaches, and apricots

But his grapes refused to make wine

Turning always into vinegar.

He called each of his children

By the first word they tried to say. Sadie

Was Gninganoy; Doris was Napougie;

My father was Sock. That leaves six

Whose true names I don't know.

In summer, he and his landtsmen

Might eat cantelopes and then

Drink schnapps from the hollowed halfs.

His children called him Poppa.

His wife Esther called him Mortrazik

I don't know what he called her.