Elise Hempel

Florida, Age 7

When we drove out of my grandmother's neighborhood,
away from the pruned orange trees and sunny houses,
to the restaurant down a narrow road
of weed-filled yards, old shacks, and This
is Niggertown was declared by my great-aunt,
and we locked all the doors, rolled up the windows,
our car sealed tight as a tank as we went
past the leaning porches, so close to those
who sat there, two or three, eating their supper,
just staring out at the sparse parade
of traffic as they chatted, laughed together
in undershirts, thin dresses, I was afraid
their eyes could reach our backseat from their crumbling steps
and read those shabby words on my great-aunt's lips.

The Divorce

Their separate beds – but wasn’t that the fad,
at least on certain sitcoms in the sixties?
And all those cloistered conferences they had
while we ate supper, tried to watch TV
yet hear the mumblings of their quiet wars,
but never any words we could extract,
their voices always low, behind closed doors,
and silence afterward their only pact.
What had he heard in her final declaration
that he never gave her what she needed?
Her words just a strange jumble, hope’s translation
as he collapsed on the kitchen floor and pleaded?
Still now, when he mentions it – no faults, no flaws.
At 91 still guessing at the cause.

Otto

Still clutching his paper, he'd only say hello,
rising from the checkered wing-chair to meet
our usual hugs, each quick kiss to his cheek,
then settle into the chair again and go

right back to reading his numbers when Grandma came
from the kitchen in her apron, beaming
with gossip and news, her questions she'd been saving
about our friends, our lives, saving him.

But he'd rise once more as we were leaving,
a glint in his eye, doling like a handshake
some clear-cut advice he'd honed from life or work,
bright and simple words made for anyone,

telling us to smile or speak up, arbitrarily
calling one of us Sunshine, Ann or me.

Long Distance

I’m thinking of our similarities
instead of our differences, now that you’re gone.
How, like me, you’d laugh out loud with ease,
describe an event the way I’ve always done –
not telling the gist of it first, reporting news,
not giving the ending away, not just yet,
but leading your listener, putting them in your shoes,
adding details, embellishing to get
their laugh or astonishment. I’m thinking how you
carefully built each story, line by line,
how in your own way, Dad, you were a writer too.
I’m thinking of your voice right now, and mine
connected, now that I’m left with only my own
aching to tell you something on the phone.

Three Words

My sister doesn’t believe in saying “I love you.”
Those words are implied, she explains, so there’s no need.
Why speak what’s understood, by all agreed?
So I assume she’s never said them to
her husband or her daughter or anyone who
she’s loved in her life, and I must concede
I came to them late, as my own daughter grew, and she’d
request them every night. But when we’re through
with our long-distance call, my fraternal twin and I,
just before we close our phones there’s this
awkward pause only I can feel, this dry
little silence she can’t hear, I guess,
after “talk to you soon,” this emptiness,
a space where three words could fit before “bye-bye.”