The Italian

 

We never heard thunder,

but once the snow came with lightning

which, in my childhood imagination, was

the impact of skyborn tragedy,

like bombers over Dresden, their payloads

exploding in distant flashes and disintegrating

in floating down flakes; the hours

seemed to circle us and accumulate

as grinding centuries smoothing

the angles of houses and cars under mounds

of ancient white dust. My brothers and I,

consumed with a sense of entitlement,

rushed outside, greedy to dig and build

and fill the space where we saw only

a disturbing nothingness. Inside, mother thumbed

the latest Sears catalogue for a new winter coat

while father tapped fingers and cursed

the Italian for showing up late with his plow.

Morganti was his name, and his hardy men

- sons, brothers, cousins - shovels shouldered

like partisan rifles, fanned out to clear paths

to our door, the doors of our neighbours,

lips dangling cigarettes, chests heaving,

parkas half-zipped, red maple leaf tuques

comically askew on their heads. I thought

of a traveling troupe of jugglers come to entertain,

or puffed-up Pagliaccis with opera props.

But they were a dignified crew and all business,

no smiles, no acknowledgment of the over-fed

snowman we rolled in our front yard,

the snowfort we excavated, battlements

to duck behind with snowball arsenal.

Getting back into their Ford, the job done,

I saw the oldest Morganti turn to his family

and smirk at what passed in Canada for history.