Hannele on Her Death Bed Reads Garcia Lorca by Dick Westheimer

When you tell your children about me, tell them I was never scared

Hannele on Her Death Bed Reads Garcia Lorca

by Dick Westheimer

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1.

Everything I’ve told you is a lie—
the rape, my mother’s time under
the reeking Cossack, my father’s blood,

even what you see here, my gray
face, my swollen tongue—these 
are not what they appear. Every

time I laughed, you thought it was
joy, but this is the way the marauders
taught us to cry, this is the way 

your Zadie’s servant girl trained me
to lie with the old man, to turn his
sweating grunts into you. 

When you tell your children
about me, tell them I was never scared,
that I said the blessings

every day, lit the candles like my mother
did, even when what was around me was
evil as Eden. 

2.  

She took them from the pouch she wore
tucked between her breasts.  She said:
here are two jewels: One is the moon,

the other is you. Keep them from 
the sun which will never be your 
lover.  Bury them if you must

but make sure you have them with you 
when you die.  Why? I don’t know
except my father told me.

3.  

She shuddered one more breath.
From her mouth fluttered a single
sheet of paper, on it written

four letters I did not know. I put
the paper under my tongue
so I could tell you this story
so you would never forget:

Hannele had four thousand 
kin-sisters you will never know and each
died with a such a slip of paper under

her tongue, each scrawled
with a cypher 
meant for me
to eat.

First published in ONLY POEMS (August, 2024)