July 2018
After teaching at a college in South Florida for thirty years, I retired, and my wife and I moved halfway across the country. Some of my poems have appeared recently in such journals as The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, San Pedro Review, and South Florida Poetry Journal. Check out my author's page on Facebook or go to my blog at http://www.michaelminassian.com
NAKED TOES, NAKED STARS
My grandfather called me from
the emergency room
to tell me he had cut off
his big toe with the lawn mower.
At the hospital,
he seemed to lose the ability
to speak English,
refusing to answer questions
or explain how the whirring blades
had found his bare foot--
instead muttering to himself
in Armenian until I arrived;
rattling off a litany of complaints
in a swift combination
of four languages,
confusing the hell out of the
Puerto Rican nurse & Indian doctor
who stood befuddled
as he spun off a long list
beginning with the poor quality
of American health care,
his recent cataract surgery,
scratchy clothing (especially socks),
and my grandmother’s
failings in the kitchen.
Most of which I refused
to translate to the ER staff
as they stitched and cauterized
the top of his toe;
wrapping his foot like some 20th
century mummy from the Bronx,
which did not impede
his cursing abilities, whiskey drinking,
card playing, or verbal abuse
of the living and dead.
That night, I searched with flashlight
and ice bucket in the tangle
of half-mown grass and weeds
of my grandparents’ backyard –
though the lost digit never appeared;
carried off by wind or whimsy
or chewed down to delicate
shard of bone
by some new world mammal;
until I finally gave up,
surrendering to the bare darkness,
cloud free sky, and naked stars.
© 2018 Michael Minassian
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