was much older than me.
How strange her face seems now
enlarged on this grainy screen,
now that she will always be
only twenty-three.
SPIRIT
The spirit of Jane
lives on in you,
my mother says
trying to describe
who I am. I feel like the girl
in the late-night movie
who gazes up in horror
at the portrait of
her freaky ancestor
as she realizes
they wear the same
gaudy pendant
round their necks.
For as long as I can
remember, my grandfather
has made the same slip:
he sits in his kitchen,
his gelatinous blue eyes
fixed on me. Well Jane,
he says, I think I’ll have
another cup of coffee.
TWO LETTERS FROM SWEDISH ANCESTORS, MUSKEGON, MICHIGAN (1910)
1. How the journey was (Marie)
I will let you know that I have come to a new land.
I will tell you now how the journey was.
Dear you can imagine it was terrible.
There was a war boat that drove into us
so there was a big hole in the boat
and our trunks stood in water.
We thought we were gone.
But we were not so far out.
Then we went with a smaller boat called St. Louis,
a little terrible boat.
We were real glad when we came to land.
We were in Muskegon Tuesday, October 3rd, at night.
They were nice people that Nels lives with.
Just young people.
He was so glad when he saw his little Svea.
You can’t imagine how fat he is. He thrives good here.
I have only my man and little Svea
and it is of course at first I feel alone.
I don’t think we will ever come to like America
as good as Sweden.
I wonder how it is with you. Well,
you are probably busy with the harvesting.
Is it a nice fall there at home?
Here it is changeable.
One day it rains,
the next day the sun shines.
2. A hearty greeting (Nels)
I must also write a few lines to you.
I have worked almost every day since I came here to America
so I am never free.
A worker can get along better here.
I am working in a factory
where we make billiard tables.
There are 700 men in the factory
so we make several hundred tables a day.
They do everything on a big scale here.
There are 3,000 Swedes here,
three Swedish churches, and many
Swedish lodges. That is good
because it goes slow to learn English.
We are too old. I wish I had been here
ten years sooner.
THE BOX
My mother says she won’t leave Michigan without it.
But when her father goes down to get it,
all he comes up with is a slim packet
of ruled paper, bound by a piece of twine.
Jane’s Diary—Private
it says on the cover,
Private twice underlined.
She didn’t always like her sister,
and she didn’t like her parents much either,
he warns my mother, who says
she doesn’t mind. She packs it
in her suitcase, tells me
we’ll look at it in due time.
About a year later, she sends me a copy.
The diary starts in January, 1960,
when Jane was thirteen, and runs
to October of 1961.
At this moment in my life
hate is so fierce
that I would give anything to
