Palavras lidas #446

More of Everything
by Joyce Sutphen

The people who made me possible
came from places in middle Europe,
riding steamships through the middle of
the nineteenth century. They didn't
always get their right names, and if
they wrote home, I never heard.

The people who made me possible
worked hard clearing the land, tree
by stump by prairie grass, hauling
rock off the fields and gravel to the
roads. They seldom stopped to consider
if here was better than over there––

wherever that was. If they regretted
anything, they didn't say, and they
didn't tell stories about the old country;
my people didn't make a fuss
about being born or dying early––
they always died early––which

explains why they loved weddings
and christenings, birthdays and
the Fourth of July––any time they could
sit at a picnic table listening to
a polka band, going back many
times for more of everything.