blindness..

they were immigrants
tucking the past as far under
as they could paprika
and sour cream rarely stopped
on our plates no one
spoke to us in that tongue

father and daughter
they fought over everything
politics religion just for sport
but never told the truth

life was a battle
he natty and unsmiling an angry
little man who went blind
the last years of his life she
a fist of determination

to be the real one not other
not a fact or a statistic
I only know it now
their rhapsodic love of Liszt
her whispering intelligentsia
the cloth she showed me once
with a crown all hidden away

a world refused our mother
wanted only to be American
her fictions not really lies her reality
blurred the tendency to crazy
ate everything up we
couldn’t see who she was
we never did