In college, I wrote a poem for him. I never told him, because I don't think he would have understood what I meant by it, and would have thought I was making fun of him. That couldn't be further from the truth, but I know he was self-conscious about the way he talked--the way I desperately wanted to talk as a girl, so I could be more like Grandpa.
I wanted to read it last week, at the wake or funeral service, but I forgot to make sure I had a copy of it before I left for NJ, and no one in Boston had a copy to send me. That's OK, because I found it was still a bit of a work in progress. We'll call the version below the "final" version, I suppose, since I'm sharing it here.
Granpa
Granpa doesn’t eat
sandwiches.
He eats cold cuts and cheese
on bread; no mayo, no mustard.
Granpa doesn’t eat sandwiches:
it’s a sangwich.
Granpa doesn’t take
naps.
He sits in his chair in the basement
with the Daily News and his reading glasses.
He just rests his eyes.
Granpa doesn’t say
his o’s right.
He watches basebawl,
drinks cawffee, black.
He answers the phone, “ye-LLO.”
Granpa doesn’t give
compliments.
“There’s two kidnsa good
in this world--no good
and good for nothing.
Which one’re you?”
Granpa doesn’t talk
about feelings.
He says, “I’ll see you
when you’re better dressed,”
not “I love you.”
Granpa can’t afford it,
and Granpa won’t talk about feelings.
(c) 2012 Christine Whitlock
RIP, Eugene
Eugenio Luigi Nicolini
Eugene Louis Nicolini
January 18, 1922--October 8, 2012
