Ondřej Pazdírek
Portals
After Granny tucked the house into night,
the child listened to the hum
of the few things from before the war.
The neon tetras burning their light
into green-black absence.
The carrack, carved and painted, with lowered sails.
The oak cabinet where elegant liquor bottles stood
like the Grande Armée, unopened.
(Grandpa drank only cheap, watered-down beer
and a glass of aperitif at Christmas dinner.)
The marble book, its stomach hollow, heavy
with coins: liras and kunas, franks and schillings, marks.
The great mountain’s face confined in a thick, gilded frame.
The contraband Spanish revolver
hidden under pilled blankets.
They hummed the West,
and humming, lured the child out of bed.
This American Breakfast
Not out of hunger, I think, but to feed you
what you don’t know, the part in me—how could you know it
after seven years of distance—that grows ever larger.
I need you to love the yolk
the way I do, sun-yellow and runny, to see
how when you pierce it, the sweet liquid spills, softens
the toast, the sausage, the bacon.
We can’t see into the hearts of others is something
I believe, but am trying to unlearn. The leaves
outside will keep
for a few more weeks. More likely than not,
you’re leaving in the right direction,
meaning westward, toward the light.