"Returnings"

by Amy Soricelli

My Grandfather lives on a Russian postcard.
He’s the one on the left – his best friend,
In the middle – the tallest,
Has a long name in his pocket and his family under his hat.
He keeps a small dog in a bag whose face peeks out
In a hopeful blink – towards the side
Where the photograph hits the edge and falls over.
The last friend on the right, the one who looks lost
Or frightened by the muted black and white of the
Whole world moved his feet against the waves of some boat he lived on.
And my Grandfather, the one on the left –
Has his hands in his pockets counting change…
First with his fingers, then with his head –
And waits to be sent with a small foreign stamp
To this house some 86 years later.

Amy Soricelli is a lifelong Bronx resident and a graduate of Herbert. H. Lehman College. She’s been published in Grub Street, Poetry Bay, Long Island Quarterly, Picayune Literary Review and was accepted into a Master Poetry Workshop with Blly Collins (2006.) Amy is happily married with an 18 year old daughter.