【Written by Sadie Zeiner-Morrish】

Little chicken legs
And a beer belly he used to drum a beat against
To make us laugh,
Like he was the jazz and the jazz
Was still in him.
He used to play harmonica
In the car, the thumb and fingers
Of his left hand holding the wheel of that Mercedes
He ran on vegetable oil. Funny,
I remember him running
In and out of restaurants, carrying those big vats
His yellow teeth flashing, jeans jangling
Low on his hips.

He used to talk up the owners,
Charm them real sweet with that Jersey smile.
He was always good at
Getting what he wanted.

That grey head is about my height now,
Though he used to tower
Over me, always calling me Sadie Lady
Giving me honeysuckle to draw
The sugar out of, singing to me
When the car broke down,
That jazz voice crooning
In my ear, those green-gray eyes like
Everything’s going to be okay baby
Even when it wasn’t, he would never
Let me know.

He used to
Take me to the Hindu temple,
The Polish deli,
Pronounce pierogi wrong
And still get every old babcia
To swoon over him, used to
Forget to make me dinner,
Tell me stories, used to love me so hard
Like he had never done anything better in his whole life.