My Grandfather's Ferarri

Stephen Poleskie

My maternal grandfather came to America from Poland

At a time when there was no Poland.

Soldiers had come to the family’s farm to take away their horses.

When his father protested an officer replied; “We will be back for your boy.”

So he put his son on a boat and sent him off to America.

There he worked in a coal mine, married and begot three daughters.

When his lungs filled up with black dust and he couldn’t work anymore

His eldest daughter, my mother, dropped out of school to support the family.

Many years later I visited my relations on their farm in Poland.

They talked excitedly about my grandfather and the letters he had sent them.

He was a banker and had three daughters, who had all gone to college.

And have you ridden in your grandfather’s Ferrari? someone asked me.

And how could I tell them that my grandfather only drove an old Ford?

And that those letters he wrote had been just his American Dreaming 

*  *  *


Stephen Poleskie’s writing has appeared in numerous journals in the USA and in Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, and the UK; as well as in five anthologies, and been three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published five novels and two books of short fiction. Poleskie lives in Ithaca, NY. with his wife the novelist, Jeanne Mackin.   website: www.StephenPoleskie.com

*   *   *