The Contract

My mother’s father sat at the table
in their rented dining room, where he wore
his undershirt and slacks and socks
as if just returned from base, ready
for a home-cooked meal, but the table
was foodless, and he filled a case of green
glass bottles with petrol and fabric cut
from the girls’ outgrown blouses.
It was evening in Glyfada,
and blackout curtains were drawn
across each window, making invisible
the pistachio trees that sweetened
the courtyard. My mother asked her father
a question, but I don’t know his reply.
I can’t say whether his superiors knew
what he was doing or if he decided
alone, but he was an officer residing
in a country not his, representing the interests
of our nation at war, outright and by proxy.
And sometimes we are the sum of our actions,
and sometimes we are both a root and cause,
and I don’t think I ever met him, my mother’s father,
as I have never met my biological grandfather
on my father’s side, which is to say
I have these histories that blur like Polaroids
shaken before my birth, but I cannot unclaim them
nor unaddress what dwells outside the frames,
and behind the cocktails being made
at the table, there were teachings
that I must reckon with. That night,
my grandfather made weapons in another
country’s home, and I wonder whether he considered
how much imperial power he poured
into each of those bottles as he sat surrounded
by his wife and kids, his teenage daughter,
my mother, who watched him, and I wonder
what it was my mother asked and whether
he paused before he answered. I wonder
whether he ever began to doubt the contract,
the promise to serve without ceasing.