ELSEWHERE

Occasionally I call up a sheet

From the 1940 census. There my father

Is thirteen, the youngest of nine people

Living in his parent’s house. Doris,

His sister, is still Dora and Jack,

His sister Anne’s husband, lives there too.

All but one of the surviving children

Live together; Harry is elsewhere.

They weren’t much for black sheep

But if they had been Harry

Would have applied for the position.

In a later world where I existed

Harry was a sort of irate spirit

Spoken of but seldom seen

But he lived – somewhere and did –

Something, perhaps many things.

My inventory of facts on him is small.

Like my grandfather, he could perform

Lightning calculations. He went west

To work for a New Deal project

He had a mean streak; money

Never stayed long with him. Sometimes

When my father sang he’d remember

That the song was one Harry taught him.