LOVE LETTERS - My Mother's Lips

LOVE LETTERS - My Mother Lips

World War II



It all began one late afternoon
in October - my Father
handed me a stack of letters,
“For the stamps,” he said.

Well,
I knew different as I reached
out - touched his letters.

Father continued to point toward
stamps, repeating how valuable
they may be.

I never collected stamps but
I am a writer –

I retire early in the evening
turn on my television, switch
a bedside lamp on low, pretend
to listen to “Criminal Minds” only
to fall asleep before the criminal
is captured.

I stacked some of the letters
inside a drawer of my bed side
table – near me – for the first
time, love letters from parents –

I would hear for the first time
the love between my mother
and father -

My heart began to beat strange –
like those times I thought I really
loved someone for the first time?

Then I recognized saying from my
life, familiar things said between
my Mother and Father –

I began to want to read more – in
order since every single envelope
was kept, in order, in perfect piles.

A smile covered my face,
no one would see it, but I knew it,
I even heard myself giggle.
Mother, she always wanted to
squeeze Father – and all those
X’s and O’s – and even lip’s – my
mother’s lips kissed paper, and she
has been dead for so long.

Between letters I repositioned myself
my leg moving nervously about
as I lived their world, felt their fear,
love, desperation, and dreams.

Nothing could be better,
nothing could compare to this night.
My mother said, “One day we may have
a little girl, and when she’s grown she
may want to read all we have said.”

Mother died far too young, but
I recall all her words, and now
in black and white – as I neatly
fold them back inside an envelope
with special stamps.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved
@2011

A STORAGE GARAGE

A Storage Garage

Our yellow garage
a padlock – foggy windows
near yellow tulips growing
in our garden –

Told to stay away from
those foggy windows
I tried to sneak through
the flowers – tip toeing

Where was Grandma?
She wasn’t in the window
watching me play…
she would be yelling now

My shoes covered in mud
Grandmother watered every
morning.

What – exactly was kept
inside our garage?
What – exactly was kept
such a secret for a lifetime?

Asked Daddy why did you
own a garage - no one owned
a car – back then…

Heard grandfather once
kept bananas safe for the
fruitman, away from the
summers sun…

You told me –
and I remember.

You told me your father -
grandfather - had a job
working for a fruit company –
for the fruit men.

You told me –
and I remember.

But – you told me your
father – grandfather –
he was killed working –
for those fruit men…

You told me –
and I remember

The fruit men killed him -
Did your father –
grandfather –
destroy – all of his bananas?

Nancy Duci Denofio
All Rights Reserved

MY FATHER'S MOURNING

MY FATHER'S MORNING

Grandmother had to be
dancing upstairs in her
kitchen - her radio blaring.
When her friends arrived -
all talking half English -
And, my mother said,
"It's too much noise."
But, the noise never stopped.

Father, he invested in a
bigger radio - more noise,
unlike grandmother did
following the death of his
father - it was tradition
to remove all the tubes
from the big - radio in her
parlor - respect.
So father never listened
to the "War of Worlds."

The day father's father
died, it had to be the
worst day of his life. . .
His father laying in
the marriage bed, his head
resting on a pillow -
a pillow stitched with
grandmother's hands
"I Love You" in Italian.

My grandfather, his head
resting on the pillow
whispered to his son,
his last request. . .

"One more cup of water
before I die."

Grandmother paying the
milkman on the front
porch, and father ran
down the steps - he
had not shed a tear -
yet filled with fear. . .

Father grabbed his
mother's arm, pulled
her away - pulled her
up the front stairs
then to his father's
room.

Father's baby brother
sank to the floor -
near the stained
woodwork in the door
way of his father's
room, and his second
son stood holding
the empty cup of water.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved