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Notes on Family
Poems by Hannah Langer

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my family:
The biological whose blood runs with mine,
The chosen whose smiles mirror mine,
And the family of authors whose writing influences mine.

Contents

My Grandfather's Chair
Words for my Parents
Notes on Family
Göttingen in Snow
Portrait of Laika as a Rising Sun

My Grandfather’s Chair

I knew him once

By rainbow veins,
Snaking like oil spills
Beneath spotted brown skin.

By his booming laugh
So loud it could bring rain,

By his broad grin,
Wide across his face
Like a fissure across dry New Mexico soil.

By clear tubes,
Rivers of oxygen flowing to
His hairy nostrils
That made my brother and I tremble
When we heard him wheeze
Like Darth Vader.

Now I know him
Through his chair,
Brown and worn
At the arms,

Sagging deeply 
Towards earth,
Leather cracking
Like wrinkled palms,

Seat creased
In the middle
Like an ever-prevailing valley,

As if he is sitting there
To this day,
Reaching out with both hands,

Veins, grin, oxygen tubes,
And softness in his eyes.

Words for my Parents

My mother, who once held me in her hand,
Will one day shrivel up and waste away,
Forget the things that she once saw as grand,
And leave me smoking, ashes in a tray.
My father? He's already counting days.
He ponders liver failure, heart attack,
Even the chance of burning up in blaze.
My mother and I laugh, lips dripping black.
I think of mouths I’ve kissed and hands I’ve touched,
And every unique face burned on my eyes.
I hold these pictures tightly, keep them clutched,
Although I know it’s all a futile guise.
For one day, we will lose the chance to speak,
To whisper words, or chant, or sing, or pray,
And all the things that we have been too meek
To say will tumble out of reach, away.
My mother I will hold, my father too,
And tell them all the words I’ve wanted to.