“Read the dictionary every Saturday morning, Gene,”
my grandfather said, in his fiery, crackling voice:
into his little den we’d go to buddy-up
in the apartment on Webster Street
very neat, his desk had one of those green visors on it
that bookies in old movies wore
bookies accountants or bank tellers in westerns
their shirtsleeves hitched up with garters
dealing out dollars behind barred windows to outlaws
just before they were robbed

his den had a clean green rug
a standup lamp with a blue shade
that was a translucent picture of a lake
and we’d read the dictionary, like church

Then he’d read me one of his latest stories,
usually a dog story (he’d been a bird-dog trainer)
a story that always moved me,
about a dog saving a boy from drowning, for example.

I liked how he talked to me as if I were an adult.
When I was nine we began a correspondence.
He’d write things like, “Nobody escapes, Gene.”

I wish I had those letters and stories now.

Things we lose, and we lose everything
we have to make up
on a Saturday like this, with the fall dawn
weakening against the chill. It’s a reminder
to read the dictionary
where words are found like river stones
smoothed by centuries of people talking.