for Catherine Mary Connolly (1969-2012)
You have faced the final storm, and now float,
high above the seas, guiding fellow sailors.
The days have begun to lighten;
the nights are open windows.
I turn the soil for a vegetable garden:
tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant.
Rhode Island Reds appear
scratching for worms with gnarled, yellow claws.
My grandfather, the blacksmith, is here, too, from the dead,
a stubby Philip Morris dangling from his lower lip.
He speaks to me, in Polish, about happiness.
