Blanket
Welcome at Kennedy Airport
—for
Peyton, my grandson
by
Norbert Krapf
There
was a small pink, blue
and
green blanket we sent
to
Bogotá for your mother
to
be wrapped in when she
came
to us in New York.
When
her plane arrived
at
the gate at Kennedy Airport
a
beautiful young Colombian
woman
with long black hair
stepped
off the plane smiling.
When
we walked up to her
she
placed baby Elizabeth Maria
in
that blanket in my arms.
I
held, beheld, kissed her
and
said, “Welcome, Love!”
There
was no wall whatsoever.
No
insults on any tough lips.
We
wrapped and held her in love.
Which
is what we give you also,
her
beautiful Colombian and German
son
with dark light-filled eyes.
Norbert
Krapf's
latest collections are The
Return of Sunshine
(2018) and Indiana Hill
Country Poems (2019).
His adaptation of his Catholic
Boy Blues
collection (2015) into a play was performed in June in the Indy
Eleven Theatre of Indy Fringe, and he is currently working on a new
play, Andrew and the Bells of
Lohr.