The Family Dialect

Here's one of the poems that will be in my new book, Neither Seen nor Heard.
I'm hoping the book will be available at Amazon.com and other online stores by July 2016.


The Family Dialect


1962
Skinny, big-eyed girl, long
black braids and a face
that always looked unclean,
backed into a corner by
the popular girls. Columbus
didn’t discover America,
their fingers in her chest
and their wisdom in her eyes.
Only Italians would be
stupid enough to go west to
get east and discover a
country already discovered—
must be where the expression
ass backwards comes from.
Nowadays, everybody knows
Leif Ericson discovered America.

1972

Times change.

Time markers change

with the times.
Everyone’s singing
their unsung heroes.
Everyone’s got a button
but me. I picked a fine
time to be Italian—it was
either Columbus or Al Capone.
I should have picked Capone.

1982

The immigrant Northern Italian
lesbian is not Italian-American.
She’s a real Italian, not like
third-generation Southern Italians
and Sicilians, who remain savages
to this day, who never developed
beyond dialect to language.
The American lesbians sympathize
with me—I lost my culture
when my family made me speak

English because they were

ashamed of the family dialect.

The politically correct lesbians share

their Columbus poems, never dreaming

of the tortured logic of ignorance and

bigotry that made Columbus a hero
to Southern Italian/Sicilian-
Americans, torture I bring to
bed with me every night.

1992

Now they’re reading their

Columbus poems at women-only
dances, to raise consciousness,
boldly proclaiming the truth,
not afraid to call Columbus
an oppressor even though
he wasn’t a wasp, because
this isn’t about wop bashing,
because they’re organizing
dances to help indigenous peoples
not to condemn wops, and if I
don’t understand how it helps
they can’t explain it, and even
a question becomes an accusation,
because they’re not about to give
up the land of opportunity bought
for them by the blood shed by
Columbus’ followers, not about
to go back to the countries their
own grandparents were starving in.
I tell them I don’t follow Columbus,
don’t follow a Northerner with his hands
in his pockets—nothing to say
and money to hide—and they remind
me that Italian-Americans are the only
people in America to be presented
honestly in the history books they
read in school, remind me I should
accept my share of the guilt, proud
to be able to admit their bigotry,
their greatest achievement, dancing
on the graves of indigenous peoples,
and just when being Italian-American
wasn’t so embarrassing anymore, it got
embarrassing again.

October

Does it matter to anyone here that
Columbus was a Northerner at
a time when there was no Italy?
Does it matter to anyone here
that Northerners have oppressed
Southerners and Sicilians in Italy,
in the United States, then, now
and forever? Does it matter to
anyone here that the overwhelming
majority of Italian-Americans are
Southerners and Sicilians?

They tell me not to explain things
in my poems. But without
an explanation they won’t
know. Without an explanation,
they don’t have to know.

 Now I’ve gotten a petition in

the mail to protest the quincentennial
celebrations signed by Italian
name after Italian name after
Italian name.

Does it matter to anyone here

that Columbus was Jewish?

Does it matter to anyone here

that Jews aren’t running to
apologize the way Italian-
Americans are? Does it matter
to anyone here that Italian-
Americans are so easy to shame
while others have too much
self-respect to fall for such
crap?

Now I’ve gotten an invitation
in the mail to a glittery
dinner and dance celebrating
someone whose gall and
insensitivity made him the
focal point of irrational and
misplaced pride at $150 a plate.

Does it matter to anyone here

that I come from a culture
as old as the beginning of the
world? Does it matter to anyone
here that I come from a culture
stolen by people who don’t know
what it’s worth? Does it matter
to anyone here that my best chance
of ethnic pride is to rip off my
skin and roll in salt?

Santa Rosalia, more over.

I’m coming to join you.

At least until the end

of the month.