Frank

 

The man behind the desk

Is always smiling.

Are you from here? I ask.

I’m practicing my French.

 

No, he says.

I’m from Normandy.

I knew my great-grandparents.

They spoke Norman patois.

That world has vanished.

My grandparents remembered the war.

They left their house

An hour before their village

Exploded.

My grandmother turned to my grandfather.

“That’s it,” she said.

“We have nothing.”

They ate grass for a week,

Like cows.

 

It was the same last year,

When the Ukrainians began to come.

Two women arrived – rich women, beautiful.

They had beautiful hats, a baby,

And nothing else.

I gave them a room, a meal.

They hadn’t eaten in a week.

People told me I was crazy,

But we have to look out for each other.

That’s vanishing too.

People are out for themselves.

 

What’s your name? I ask.

Frank, he says,

After Frank Sinatra.

Really? I say.

Yes, he says.