May 13, 2012

Mother marveled
as she listened to Dad read the want ads
in the New York Review of Books,
someone in braces seeking
a mid-day rendez-vous on Wall Street,
another into good looks, money ,
with a knowledge of Turkish and
Buxtehuede’s Magnificat

…God!
What they want! mother exclaimed
raising her shoulders
with a gasp of amzement,
knowing compromise well
not married to a Hollywood star
or a saint

I’d picked up the publication on the subway
not knowing romance was advertised
on the back pages,
pondering with some measure of success
the meaning of its brilliant theories
and disquisitions
which followed the cover’s bright headlines

My friend Judy subscribed to it
but I was not focused as she
a bit nervous like my father
I gave it a try anyhow
Fnding it was a sign
I brought it home
not thinking Dad would read it,
he with just a grade school education
though fast with numbers like the Chinese with abacus

I’ll say no more about my parents
how their marriage was not made in heaven
with nothing exotic, forbidden , no pre-barroque music,
but how it got me here, I who am not an angel,
I who  brought laughter’s revelation into their home