Poetry

Letters from Baka
​by Teresa Klepac
He saved all her letters
Tied up with stiff, white string and
stained with tears.
His blue-veined hands smoothed
the vellum, traveling across
a distance no longer marked
by a street address.
He cradled them the way a man
cradles a child’s head . . . so fragile
those feelings
those thoughts
memories.
There are stains on the creased pages.
The ink-aged sepia.
A lock of chestnut hair
a polaroid trimmed in white scallops
a woman, small and delicate.
He says, my grandmother’s hands,
I can only remember their softness
as she washed my face.
Tenderly speaking Croatian,
small hands against my ivory skin.
He touched his face, closed his eyes
and sighed. 
Traveled the distance between
now and then.