Whenever I hear the word wizened
I see his face…Uncle Chick.
(His last name was Ciccarelli.)
Lean and leather-skinned,
he rocks on his porch and smiles at me.
Seven-year-old me
doesn’t know what to say to an old man.
He’s short on words too
never having learned much English.
In the house
Grandmom and her sister Antoinette,
Chick’s wife,
gossip in Italian dialect,
“E chi là, là… e chi là, là…”
Meanwhile, we sit for days,
or so it feels,
Uncle Chick and I,
exchanging occasional smiles.
Until…
pushing against the arms of his rocking chair,
he rises and resolutely approaches
the porch steps.
His venerable frame arched forward,
he plods across the street and disappears
into a mom-and-pop grocery store.
About a year
later
he steps onto the porch again,
extends his craggy hand and,
smiling that wide, wizened smile,
gives me a Hershey bar.
