Smoke & Monlogue

It was dark by the time I reached Brooklyn, and I forced myself not to give in to the series of mechanical actions which had become my companions in, what, two years . . . two years of traveling back and forth and forth and back . . . down the station steps, up the station steps . . . past the headlines and go-go dancers . . . the go outside and wait . . . for what? A bus? Autobus? Only sometimes. Mostly I felt like the little tobacco wound up in the cast off cigarette, the one burning over there.

I came to America . . . I came to America, New York City . . . because of a great story told to me by my Grandfather, jug of wine by his foot like a bass drum to punctuate some song he sewed into my blood . . . He bounced me on his knee, bounced it into me . . . He was a poet, they called me away from him, but he spun smoke that looked like a stairway . . . I ran up when no one was looking.

If the smallest pebble is worthless, then everything is worthless, and . . . Is that really what you want to tell your grandchildren?

If the largest love is broken, small as a pebble . . . and it is worthless . . .

if what is worthless is worth no more than a pebble . . .

Surely you have remembered to catch snowflakes in your bare hands, to fly the greatest kite . . .

Let me tell you a joke, let me try one on you. Wait, wait. This is not a joke like that. I would never joke about comedy.

A very old lady at a party of cocktails . . . she seems to be wealthy and certainly they pay attention to her. The politicians, the important people. You know the kind. And at once, a group of honor students from the local high school approach with their guide. They are the guests of honor. She begins to apologize, she says, for not being Italian. Oh yes, I forgot to mention . . . it was an event to honor a famous, Italian construction worker. She says to the young people, I’m not Italian, but my first husband was named Luigi. He used to bring me cannolis from a store called La Strada. I used to say, “I’m Italian, but only by injection.”

By injection! I love the American spirit. When my grandfather went to America, he met a beautiful woman. He married her. He went to war. Wrote her a letter every day. And when he came back, he walked right past her, walked right through her almost. He was looking for the letters. And when he found them . . . ah . . . when he found them he took them out back. He burned them and then kissed her on the tears. He said what I will always remember: I will never leave you like the smoke that leaves you now.