My Ukranian Grandmother

by James Sherry

My Ukrainian Grandmother connected joy
With weakness, scoffed at pleasure,
Except her finger in a socket.
She called each grandchild by all
Our names: Jimmy, Dicky, Danny
And ended babbling like a brook.

My Ukrainian Grandmother kept her sons close
And her husband under her thumb.
When I was 25 my uncle still slept in his childhood bed.
Her apartment smelled like chicken
And the elevator was scary.

She looked down on Jews from other places
“The Hunkies,” “the Krauts.”  Can you still read
This awful poem about this selfish woman
Who like Dostoyevsky’s first tale
Would prefer to burn in hell
Than give a beggar an onion ?

Yet at no time should she be left alone,
At no time does she deserve less,
At no time should Ukrainian people
Be battered by Russia’s leader’s vendetta
Against European and American
Who defeated Russia in the cold war.

Let the Celts recover northern Europe
Let Asia be returned to the Mongols.
Let America be given to primeval
Hunters who followed the glaciers north.
Let Babylon reclaim the Tigris Euphrates.
Time goes in one direction
Except in your imagination
For which there are no treaties.

“My Ukrainian Grandmother” will be published
elsewhere in an online tribute to Ukrain