His father’s mother’s name
was Lara. An educated woman,
or more so than her other immigrant
neighbors. They would clamor round
when letters arrived from the old country.
She was the only one who could read
the Italian. More than this, she was
an excellent nurse.
Once, on a bet, he stuck his hand
into a pot of hot lard. She immediately
ran outside to gather leaves
of a mysterious sort and wrapped them
around his injury. When unveiled,
he said, his hand was fine. As if nothing
had happened. He flexed his fingers
as he told me this, and his eyes
still looked amazed.
Lara was a midwife too.
She would get called away
to many a birthing, and always
she carried her little black bag.
With a handle, it was something like
a toolbox, her doctor’s sacchetto.
His father used to be
the size of this bag.
And he, for the longest time,
thought his mother carried
babies around in it.