Papa

Never one to tussle hair,
what has stayed with me instead
is the exquisite vulgarity of my grandfather’s curses,
their vaguely Teutonic syntax.

“Christ tits!” [after he put his back out varnishing a ceiling fan]
“Cunt slapper!” [while hurling a subpar lasagna into the kitchen sink]

In current nomenclature, “Alcohol use disorder”.
In the family dialect, “He was in the war”.
A miserable prick, by all accounts.

But one time:
Inexplicably, dreamlike to me now, he and I alone for a walk in woods near ocean.
We veered off the path immediately, wended through the trees
to the steep rocky rim where the sea
lapped.
We clamored our way over those rocks – no easy feat for child or old man – as if the trail had petered out, as if we had no choice.
His insistence made sense to me then and still does.