My mother was Hungarian, and she would
never let me remember it, by Anglicizing
her maiden name, by forbidding me from
telling anyone that I was half Hungarian,
refusing to teach me any Magyar, despite
my asking during childhood and the teens.
I could never speak with my grandparents,
who were not taught how to speak English.
When I was just 16, I dated a Polish girl, warm,
sweet. I liked her, and I think she felt the same
about me, but when my mother found out
she was of Slavic descent, she shut the door.
I want to apologize to her for my absence
of courage over 60 years ago, howsoever late.
never let me remember it, by Anglicizing
her maiden name, by forbidding me from
telling anyone that I was half Hungarian,
refusing to teach me any Magyar, despite
my asking during childhood and the teens.
I could never speak with my grandparents,
who were not taught how to speak English.
When I was just 16, I dated a Polish girl, warm,
sweet. I liked her, and I think she felt the same
about me, but when my mother found out
she was of Slavic descent, she shut the door.
I want to apologize to her for my absence
of courage over 60 years ago, howsoever late.
Ronald Moran has published 12 collections of poetry, two books of criticism (one coauthored), and hundreds of poems, essays, and reviews in a number of journals, including Connecticut Poetry Review, Commonweal, Louisiana Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, and The Wallace Stevens Journal. His newest collection, Eye of the World, will be published by Clemson University Press in 2016.
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