Three Generations

Here, we see the crooked house

in a listing countryside, Poland

of mud, roads furrowed as a brow,

falling down fences. Grandma

is stooped by the weight of a lumpy

sky. Arthritic knuckles, pebbles

for knees. Beside her, a middle-aged

daughter, skin the color of walked-

on snow except for her scraped cheeks.

And between them both, a little girl

wearing the dull blue that can only

mean winter. In this world, women

are old and fat, or else they’re thin

wire, their faces molded clay. But

what we remember most is the shawl

one of them wears on her shoulders,

fabric patterned like a tired field,

pink roses done with blossoming.