As my mother tells it,
when the Great War
came
my Great-Grandmother
Guarneschella lied. Dates
are relative.
Domenico
wouldn’t be 16. Wouldn’t be
conscripted. Didn’t matter.
Ran away
with his cousin
to the front at 14. Earned him
a bayonet gash
he would boast
a lifetime later. No one else
in his unit
survived. Once,
I touched that smooth
valley
in his right shin,
looking, wondering
all the while
what he
could not tell us.
Poetry
Winter/Spring
2018
