Scraps of a Portrait

The living don’t forsake the dead, 
no more than the dead forsake returning.
Paol Keineg

for his hands I’m done grieving
but not for his gestures
the way
he’d hang his heavy jacket on a nail
and bend over his shoe for a brief daydream
(from the storage room his cough)
a place for him set at the table
perhaps he was eating lunch
but chewing very slowly
like someone weighing the effort
to calculate the cost of each thing
maybe not after all

the way in any case
he’d quickly fold the knife blade into its handle
and pivoting on his hip would stash it
in the vast pocket of his overalls
where he keeps
a coin purse a tobacco pouch
the silver lighter found on a lucky day

thus in silence he passes through
the quiet rooms of my childhood
(his cough in each doorway)
in a halo of outdated things and long-gone words
I no longer have a trace of his voice
only his cough returns as an echo

enough to feed a chicken coop!
instant scraps in tidy little stacks
leftovers quickly returned to the larder
for order serves as capital for the poor
and what’s more demonstrates honesty
this she firmly believes
hence her kitchen smelling of stew and bleach
and the Russian leather hand-me-down from her employers
proper people she says who entertain a lot
with a shrug of his shoulders in passive defiance
he walks into the next room
the one they call the dining room
within an inch of the table a box spring
has always been used as a couch

he’d then be standing close to the wood-burning stove
(you can tell by his cough)
tuning the radio
or else sitting with book in hand
elbows on knees
from him all I have left
are wrinkles and the part in his hair
his hunched back
I also know him as someone 
who liked the Larousse and the Algerians
was a fan of a long-standing radio quiz show a whiz at slang
and keen on exposing collusion of butt and boot
of leader and lackey
and I know this cough
that abruptly becomes a wheeze

one day in July
he knows which branch to cut for a walking stick
and which will work best for knocking down walnuts
or unraveling a viper’s slimy knot
he can tell the time from facing the sun
a wisp of straw stuck between two fingers

one day in January
at the neighborhood library both of us immersed
he in a thick history book and I in a Tintin comic strip
on the way home
                                  a furtive stop at the bar
a grenadine served in a wine glass for the kid
so she can join the buddies in a toast!
betrayed for a piece of hard candy right at the no-nonsense threshold
bye-bye to strolling hand in hand
(and forget about the syrup)

one day in spring
clean-shaven with towel on shoulder
he’s coming back from the public baths
with soap bar blades and shaving brush
in his nylon string bag

during the verdigris years
a few dodgy dealings rebellions and lies
we embellished over time
he wasn’t so easily taken in you know! by the occupying forces
even though his father (they said)
was a tall red-haired German

bedridden after the accident
his crumbled spine in its white shell
looking like
a breathless turtle on its back
after falling from a truck
his staccato cough
filling his garment’s oversized collar

and also
despite his usual lack of patience for gossip and sanctimoniousness
he’d picked her up under the armpits with her injured leg
dragged her away from the famous doctor’s contempt
(lady in wartime you just have to make the best of things)
and had promptly taken her and her lame leg
to the bonesetter on rue de mouzaïa or perhaps rue des solitaires
Paris back in the day still had a few of them

upside-down bread
he didn’t rest until it was turned right side up
he said people said this was out of fear
that the devil would make a quick feast of it
she herself had eventually lost the habit
of using the knife’s devout tip to sign the crust with a cross
just before the first slice was cut
(while some favored
breaking off pieces and others preferred
a clean slice, he couldn’t care less)
but she saved every crust
for it’s a sin to waste bread

never haughty nor angry
and never unhinged
only once did I see him
wipe with the back of his sleeve
a drop of sorrow rolling
down the side of his nose

from him all I have left are crumbs
like the ones after a meal
you swipe away with a sponge
from the oilcloth into your cupped hand
never ever I fear
will they do him justice or even a portrait

see   the way I try   these scraps
      to stack        into tidy little stanzas
I lose the taste of bread
and the present already grating under the knife
what crumbs of myself
will remain I muse
tomorrow . . .

Translation from the French