Monday, May 18, 2026

BELONGING

 

My Grandfather Joe was a changeling

Small and precise and wary and 

Out of place in a large, vague family.

His brothers and sisters wore glasses;

He could count the feathers on a bird

Three miles away. (I started to write four

But his ghost shook its head at me).

He was not one to forget an injury

Over time he found that the grudges

His soft-natured kin couldn't keep

All came to live with him. 


Through intermediaries

The demons who'd left him as a joke

Offered to take hin back but his family

Refused. He knew this because Lena,

His sister, told him during a chess match,

Hoping to put him off his game.


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