What He Would Say About the War

He would say the food.He would say the cold, and then the food again,and then the name of a town he could not spell,and then he would ask if anyone wanted more potatoes.

Forty years of Sundays, and that was the whole of it:the food, the cold, the town, the potatoes.

At the funeral a man I had never mettold me about a bridge, and a boy named Halloran,and what my grandfather did on the third day,and then he said: he never told you that, did he.

No. He told me about the food.I understand now that he was telling me about the bridgethe entire time, in the only languagehe was ever willing to be fluent in.