Poem about my Grandfather

My Grandpa Said

I remember his pregnant rotund belly as he glared through contented eyes upon his progeny and he grunted with reply, “You know boy, it took a lot of money to put this here.” My grandpa said.

His rough deep voice with an Italian hum lingering on my contentment because his safety is that I am fed, laced with wine, clothed, loved and one day wed. “Wait on the corner, and a girl will come around every fifteen minutes.” My grandpa said.

He plumbed for life and yes from out his pants fell his bum as he sweated pipe; never letting us touch the light because false safety lent to contentment. He had my forty five year old Father teach me to solder. “Just you watch me do it.” My grandpa said.

He spoke an autonomous language of slurred Italian mixed with self-delusion that my father translated with fluid disposition and my grandmother felt a charade. Too many sweets caused diabetes so through self made linguistics to abscond more nut roll he bade, “Your grandmother wants some cake.” My grandpa said.  

We laughed around chuck roast on spaghetti listening to his beautiful stories, his self-carved epitaphs and we asked too deep a question. He slipped brown eyes over his glasses staring intently with fluffy white curly hair and opined, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” My grandpa said.

With bacchanalian eyes I gazed drunk on his sawdust tables with bear claw blades that made salmon scars on his thigh. He crafted a porch swing engraving his name in the thick polyurethaned oak slats so we could smoke late into the night. “(When you handle tools) you gotta hit the hole.” My grandpa said.

We hunted together in forest green woods with ferns laid as hand stitched quilts,  leaning against a mossy oak holding his 300 savage as we rested, apathetic if I saw a deer because I was near my grandpa “Whose going to get my guns when I die?” My grandpa said.

I watched him linger, his titanium knees, his scars covering his spinal column, his thighs, and his head. I sit with him in smoky silence puffing on cigars since I was fifteen. He took up smoking for me. “It’s hard getting old, old buddy.” My grandpa said.

“Don’t cut the poop”

“I always shoot three times, even if I don’t have to.”