Saul Bennett
15
Father, it says on the Web today,
was born the June day
in 'Ought-four - Bloomsday -
a thousand or more
Died
When the grand excursion steamer General Slocum
burned - Jesus! -- in the East River,
itching one today to wonder
if Grandfather (and, if so, in Yiddish probably)
Pondered at length
such a horror in their little walkup
in the afterglow of the home
birthing of a third son?
Why the wonder now
who knows - though a rising
need to divine the measure
of my blood's humanity.
I happen to possess New York's long-deceased
Evening Mail - the very issue -
showing in still lives the Slocum's end.
In oddly rigid black-and-whites
with obituary borders
a visitor laps the blurry
scenes smelling flesh. As these cindered
Children,
mothers,
aunts,
what have you,
Were Gentile, a mass
of church picnickers, Grandfather,
perhaps,
felt further removed?
Or!
though something of a growler,
perhaps,
almost, wept?
And!
as his trade was tailor!
thought to rush by trolley to St. Mark's
German Lutheran - across,
Down, to lower Second Avenue
unclaimed clothes,
perhaps,
for the rare survivor?