Family Tree  

by Laura Ann Reed


Today as I sign a check, I pause
on my middle name
which came to me from my grandmother.
It came to her
from an immigration officer
who claimed
her Russian name, Alta—
first-born child, oldest one—
was troublesome,
and she’d be better off as Ann.

At eight
I know the story well—
her first-born granddaughter,
the oldest one
with her large dark eyes
and changed name.
Allowed to visit on my own
I take the long train ride from the coast
to her inland home.
I arrive bearing a plaid suitcase
with my nametag on a gold chain.

A few days later
my grandmother comes out to
the giant walnut tree
I’m climbing. Did I carve Laura Ann
in the veneered lid
of the wicker clothes hamper in the hall?
I gaze from the spreading limbs
into her upturned face
and wait for a scolding
that doesn’t come.


* * * * *

"Family Tree" was originally published in Sky Island Journal.

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.