Tuesday poem #427 : Emily Brandt : I still live t\here

 

 

 

I live for a decade
near the six-unit building
where my antecessors
(bisnonna, bisnonno) live
upon arrival    at the turn
of the 20th century.
Sicilian cafe nearby
perpetually empty   evidence
of some Italian    in what’s now
the 83rd Precinct  (note:
English)   is once
the 18th Ward    of Brooklyn,
is earlier     little town
in the woods   or   heavy woods
depending on your source
is before land of the Lenape
and before, glacial.
Do my antecessors know   
that the 83rd Precinct
grants them whiteness within
one generation? Can they even
imagine, when they leave Regalbuto?
The great wooden horse
becomes flesh in the new world.

 

 

 

 

Emily Brandt is the author of the poetry collection Falsehood (After Hours Editions), as well as three chapbooks. She's a co-founding editor of No, Dear, curator of the LINEAGE reading series at Wendy’s Subway, and visionary at landscape.fm. She’s of Sicilian, Polish & Ukrainian descent, and lives in Brooklyn.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan