My dead grandparents from Poland,
Hungary, the shtetles, 9 days in the bowels
of a ship, are in my pool,
taking turns floating in the blue
and white plastic chair filled
with my breath.
Grandma Tillie, who shined shoes
outside the men’s room
at the Port Authority, lays back
in the postcard sun. Her faded rose-covered
housedress fluttering above her pale,
plucked chicken legs—
bathing in the sequined water; her
childish laughter mixing
with shy splashes. Then my father’s father,
whom I never met, his name my name.
A subway pole of a man in t-shirt
and brown slacks, smoking
a cigarette, mystified
by the tenement tall palm trees,
squinting to see if this is real, him
in a chair in a swimming pool
at his grandson’s house;
no taxi cab to drive
all night, no meters counting
away his life, no Jew-hating bosses,
no bolt of pain in his chest
stopping him at forty-six.
Just the breeze from a new ocean,
the gentle waves
of his own breath. I see myself
wading over to him, I’m holding
a glass of dark schnapps.
He kisses my wet head, sighs soft
and blue, “It’s too much,
Meyer, too much.” He rows himself