And<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The day my sister\u2019s cancer staked its claim
\nI learned that Milosz left Harry Potter
\non his desk when he died, his letters
\nfrom the pope piling up in his mailbox.
\nAnd what letters. Two old Poles talking life:
\n\u201cAh Czeslaw,\u201d says the pope, \u201cI\u2019m just the grease.
\nYou\u2019ll have to talk to the wheels.\u201d No one knows
\nthe question, but this is a pope I can
\nget behind. Humble. Humorous. Infallible.
\nAnd I think of me and the pope: he\u2019ll let me
\ncall him Karol as he tours me through
\nthe Vatican, and we\u2019ll send papal envoys
\nfor pizza, and on his day off we\u2019ll visit
\nthe Fiat factory in Turin, stick our fingers
\nin mounds of fresh ground pork at a local
\ngrocery store, and he\u2019ll teach me the Polish
\nfolk tunes sung before the war. And I\u2019ll get
\nto a Mass or two in Latin or Italian,
\nand late one night I\u2019ll find decorum
\nand a minute to ask the question I came
\nall this way to resolve: the thing about
\nmy sister. And you know the thing he\u2019ll say
\nabout my sister, about the angel on his right
\nand the grim believability of it all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“And” is reprinted from Santa Clara Review.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rylie Dodd buys cowboy shirts for her husband Jeffrey G. Dodd.<\/a> The couple lives in Spokane, WA, but he\u2019s from southeast Texas and sometimes needs his homesickness eased. Plus, the little pearlescent snaps are so crisp and tactile. Someday, she thinks, he\u2019ll write a poem about them. The snaps, not the shirts. She\u2019ll be featured prominently. Like his other poems, it may be published in journals such as Ruminate,<\/em> Rock & Sling, Copper Nickel,<\/em> and Meridian.<\/em> She doesn\u2019t tell him this; he doesn\u2019t need the ego boost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And The day my sister\u2019s cancer staked its claim I learned that Milosz left Harry Potter on his desk when he died, his letters from the pope piling up in his mailbox. And what letters. Two old Poles talking … Continue reading