Nanna’s accordion
is gathering dust
on a plywood floor
at the top of the stairs.
She got it in ’41,
back when she was just
a child, before the war.
Kids themselves, her heirs
can’t bear its squawking spirit,
its raw asthmatic
rasp, or its wheezing
sick-room breath.
They imagine they hear it,
even from the attic;
a sound once pleasing,
now too much like death.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Fraying Fabric of the Church of England
St. Paul’s Cathedral has come up with a novel way to fill the pews: It is becoming…
Talkin’ God and Football
Paul Finebaum is known as “the mouth of the South,” but he does a lot of listening.…
Letters—October 2026
I’m grateful for Stephan Pax Leonard’s essay on his conversion to Orthodoxy (“Why I Became Orthodox,” June/July…
