My Austrian grandmother
stands by a window
listening to my shovel scrape
the snow as it falls.
By tomorrow
my jagged path
will disappear again
into smoothness,
but she worries
that school children,
small and wrapped in wool,
may lose their way
if sidewalk slides into snowdrift.
Tonight when this work is done
I will sit in stocking feet
at a table steaming
with liver dumplings and broth,
sip homebrew
until I feel numb and good.
Grandfather will smoke Luckies
by and old Philco,
half hearing Vaughn Monroe
sing “Shine on
Shine on harvest moon
Up in the sky….”
She will turn up the oven
to give me warmth,
lean towards me on an elbow
and tell again
how poor they were in the old country.