Racine, Wi.

The smell of rye bread, fresh out of its plastic bag,

bought at the Piggly Wiggly, lying on a China plate

that was purchased sometime in the ’50s by my grandma.

She sits in front of the cheeses – a thick block of cheddar (Wisconsin cheddar), Meunster; the meats – roast beef, honey ham, turkey breast (if I’m lucky);

and the egg salad (“too salty,” my mom says).

She insists we finish off every little morsel of her spread,

just as she pushed at us furniture, photos, and my grandpa’s shirts after his death.

In the hospital room, sitting next to his cold, still body

I drank orange juice from a Styrofoam cup and ate donut holes bought at a gas station,

the powered sugar that dusted my fingers resembling the shade of his hair.

I was unsure what I should do at nine,

what expression my face should take, what tone of voice I should use.

I couldn’t replicate the jolting sobs of my mother the night before when

she said she wished her dad had been

“more like Hank.”

I looked to others for cues – stony faces or wet eyes –

and felt ashamed when my cousin asked why I wasn’t crying.

~

We take the road from the church

that winds pass the cemetery,

where my dad points out the names of our relatives, sticking up from the ground

between sun-burnt blades of grass.

That road carries us to Main Street,

over the bridge,

through what used to be downtown –

sometime in the ’60s.

I imagine “Walk Away Renee” being played then as my dad

scooped ice cream for the residents of a city

ripe with the exhaust of revved cars, teenage anticipation, and the glint

of the Johnson’s Wax factory.

Now the chains of the park swing sets are rusty and the storefronts

appear beige and lackluster,

the lit “We Are Open” signs tired in their age.

“The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same.

You’re not to blame.”