SOME OF THE ANSWERS by Chani Zwibel

My grandfather’s books carry the scent of my grandparents’ house.
 Cigarette smoke, coal dust, the sweetish smell of an old man’s perspiration.
 I read and I am transported.
I can feel in my hands his hands holding the book I’m holding,
reading out on the pavilion he built,
feel as I am sitting in a chair, he is sitting on his picnic bench,
 angled in such a way to see the view of tree-lined hills,
where when the sun sets it is a glory of red, gold, and plum.
 It is the blue hour of dusk always pulling me to memory.
 The way of being drawn in,
close and cozy to a house lit with warm light
 after the velour-lush blue outside has dissolved into blackness.
Warner Brothers cartoons are on the TV inside.
 Outside, crickets play the soundtrack.
Slow days roll away while you recognize religion is a box like a coffin
and the dream of god is to get you to go to sleep,
 a little night light in the darkness.
In my grandfather’s books are all the answers.
At least, all the answers to the questions I have been asking,
without knowing I have been asking.
 All the answers a man can give and cannot give to his girl-kin.
He cannot speak about the horrible things,
 but the horrible things exist in the world nonetheless,
and the books speak of them in details the old man could not say outright.
He favored horror stories
because he had seen horrors in real life,
and prayed to forget them,
although they often came unbidden in nightmares
 if he forgot to cover his whole body
 up to the neck with covers while he slept.
The ills of this world will not go away;
they will wait,
swarming like a cloud of gnats,
but we must fight them,
and if we cannot fight them,
then we must let them GO.
 We must drive them off with lavender smoke.
 We must wash them away with salt water.
We must not let them dive
into the eaves of our eyes
 in search of tears.
We must not let them buzz
 around our sweaty brow,
a pestilence.

Chani Zwibel is the author of Cave Dreams to Star Portals. She is an associate editor with Madness Muse Press. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but now dwells in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband and their dog. She co-hosts an open mic night called Poetry and Palette once a month at The Good Acting Studio in Marietta.