ALONG

That Tonto spoke Yiddish was no surprise;
From listening with her youngest to episodes
Of The Lone Ranger my grandmother knew
That Tonto could do almost anything.
After she died, he’d clattered up
To offer her a ride on Scout. They chatted;
Tonto, it turned out, was an orphan too.
He'd never seen Lemberg but had heard
That its streets were wide and that
The second oldest fish in the world
Lived in the waters of the Poltowa.

MEETING THE EMPEROR

One day in her home town my grandmother Esther

Saw the ghost of the Emperor. This surprised her;

Franz Joseph was alive and even if he wasn’t,

Why would he be selling used clothes in Lemberg?

Still, she had no doubt. This was the face she’d seen

On stamps and coins, in schools and post offices.

She had always a soft spot for the Emperor;

And many decades later, in far-off Brooklyn,

Deemed herself still a reasonably loyal subject.

Her husband could, if he wanted – and he did –

Vote for Roosevelt but she, having grown up

With a monarch, considered a president

To be something inconsiderable. Franz Joseph

Did not roam about asking people to elect him.

Esther was 15 that day in the market with no intent

Of ever leaving Lemberg. Sometimes in her dreams

She flew, but when she looked down, saw the Poltowa,

Its bridges filled with statues which craned their necks

To see her flying by, waving at them.

(Her ninth child, my father,  also flew in his sleep

But I don’t know if he ever saw the Poltowa.)

Brave, she walked up to the Emperor

Who was extolling a pair of almost new pants

To a skeptical buyer, stretching the cloth

In his semitransparent hands. He gave her a smile

Behind his enormous mustache. How we have dwindled!

I cannot talk to dogs; I cannot fly in dreams

The closest I’ve been to an emperor is not very close

Though Dwight Eisenhower walked into my mother,

Knocking her down, three months before I was born.

A LEMBERGOISE

My grandmother Esther was from Lemberg
Also called Lvov, Lwow, Lviv and Leopolis.
When there was a kingdom called Ruthenia,
Its king lived there. Karaites drifted in

From Byzantium. It had  -- still has -- broad streets
Leading to an opera house, so my grandmother
When she was a teenager making cigarettes
With other factory girls may have gone
To see Carmen, which is also about a girl
Who makes cigarettes. Due to Lvov's shortage
Of Escamillos, or even Don Joses, she married Max,
A very nice man. Over time, mild affection for him

Blossomed into serene and settled dislike.
Had they stayed they likely would have died
Along with almost all the other of the towns’Jews.
She deemed New York no substitute for Lemberg.
The moon over the Hudson River was never

A match for the one whose white double

Swam through Poltowa’s broken willows.