Saundra Rose Maley

The Granddaughter

Down deep in the miles of mines
of the Allegheny mountains

my grandfather crawled for years
his shoulders cramped by rock—

he had no wings only a pick 
and shovel—so he drank

his whiskey and told me once
that he knew if he could get

his shoulders through
he could get his whole body 

through—he told me this
as if it were a secret—me—

with my secrets—and the one 
who lost the notebook 

where I took his stories down
hat day—that one day he spoke

only to me about those mines—
his mines—told me—the granddaughter 

the granddaughter who would give him 
no great grandchildren—because 

I love women—the way he did—
to love a woman—

how can that be bad

Saundra Rose Maley is the author of the poetry collection Disappearing Act (2015). She co-edited A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright with Anne Wright (2005), and she and Wright collaborated with Jeff Katz on So Much Secret Labor: James Wright and Translation (forthcoming). Maley also published Solitary Apprenticeship: James Wright and German Poetry (1996), and co-authored The Art of the Footnote (1996) and The Research Guide for the Digital Age (1997) with Francis Burkle-Young. She has taught at several DC-area universities and is a co-founder of the annual Confluence Conference at Montgomery College, which brings together literary translators from the region.