Napoleon

No, not the guy on the Courvoisier

bottle, but the barrel-chested man

who padded around upstairs in our house

in slippers, white shirts and suspenders

and lived with my Nana for a couple of

years before dying of the shaking disease.

A big man he feared lady bugs, smoked

Old Gold and called out “bright eyes

cut-cut,” whenever he saw my sister or me.

His English was spotty, so I’m not sure

what he meant by cut-cut.  He was always

in holiday pictures but off to the side, sort

of there but not quite there which is how

my Thai family will probably remember me.

Almost at the end, I burst into Nana’s

kitchen and saw him sitting buck naked

in a cheap dining chair while she gave

him a sponge bath.  His head turned slowly

towards me, but his mortification must have

been profound.

A painter can make history rear up in a moment

of glory and exultation but for most of us history

is the gaze of a helpless old man whose eyes turn

slowly toward us – while begging our forgiveness.

FG  May 15, 2011

All rights reserved by the author Forrest Greenwood.

I believe my grandfather “Poli” died of Parkinson’s disease.

My biological grandfather Arthur died young a decade or

so before I was born.  Like shards of a broken mirror,

all I remember of Poli are here in this poem.  I think

“bright eyes cut-cut” was a reference to chicks.  For

the record his name was Napoleon Guimond.