THE 70 TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY
Hands on the clock are stuck,
guests have gone home—
champagne corks all popped
and drinks have lost their fizz.
All that’s left— a chiaroscuro photo
of you and me on our farm
inhaling the scent of new-mown hay.
Bouquets of delphinium wilt,
but my moustache keeps twitching
for a taste of your melted brie.
Your dance shoes keep click-clacking
through drifts of confetti on the floor.
After our Aramaic wedding in Bnei Brak
where I paid seven shekels for you,
we rode camels in the windblown sands
of the Sinai before the Six-Day War.
We used to hike off the trails
in a quest for edible mushrooms.
Once we collected crustaceans
and fossils at the Catskill Creek
and saved them in a pewter pot.
We read Lafcadio Hern’s glimpses
of unfamiliar Japan and listened
to Alan Watts like meditating monks
seated back to back every night.
Since you were a connoisseur
of living in the present moment,
our bedrooms walls vibrated
as we bonded harmoniously.
Please don’t leave this world before me—
it will turn my kishkes inside out
and decapitate my soul. I will fall apart
agonizing over the sense of stillness
in our house if you are gone.