Grandma Pulls a Pan of Spanakopita From the Oven & Tells Me About Coming to America

Oh, the smell of brine; so many people sick, no birds for miles & miles.
So many languages in one place all talking crying praying laughing
at the same time; as if God didn’t want us to understand each other.

Too much noise to think, we were hot then cold then hot again; afraid
of the future. I cried. Wished myself back home. Wished the boat
to turn itself around.

There was a boy clutching a wooden painted top in his hand, his other
hand squeezed his mother’s white. She was younger than me. I couldn’t
even imagine taking care of someone else.

I was 17. Wanted my mama. Wanted to stop the roiling ship, the sickening
slap of water. Wanted to close my eyes and open them to this new world;
the one we thought we could remake as our own.

Your aunt Reta was brave. Never flinched once at the smells; boiled meat,
body odor, overflowing bathroom buckets. Heavy smells. Foul enough
to deaden the brightest dreams.

She was able to make a conversation with the boy’s mother. He was sick.
Cholera. Or maybe not. So long ago it’s hard to remember. Come here
now! Eat Lexy, eat.

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Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024; RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press in 2024; and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024, by Bottlecap Press. He lives in the Hudson Valley, New York, with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.