This is no bubbe meisseh
(or maybe it is)
It's the truth grandmothers tell
that you can't hear until you know it.
Did I tell you how my parents met?
My dad had no date
and momma was a hot ticket
So Mrs. Rockwell (sounding to my child ear like Rockefeller; no,
like Rothschild)
got on the Hoboken Hadassah hot-line
And he was welcomed by bubbe and zeydeh
with garlic handshakes.
My mother protested.
`But ma, he's fat as the pretzel man'
`Shah' says bubbe, `A nice boy. Have a good time darling.'
(Only I'm sure she said it in yiddish so
I couldn't understand until well after I was born.)
And he didn't kiss like Bob Grossman
he had a temper
he ate with his mouth open
and he wasn't a poet.
But he was constant and no more or less a
nudnick than anyone else so,
she married him.
You know you should be married
I've such a nice boy for you
I only live to see you married...
I knew my grandparents would live forever
while I tasted rapture's gardens
poets, artists, musicians
we hung rosettes on the headboard
and in the doorway
and in the back seat
and in the front seat
and in the diner
and and and...
sometimes, no most times I was dizzy, faint and full
full of words and love and passion
and and and...
sometimes now I sigh and let tears fall
with nostalgia for a hot breathed
conquistador savored and kissed.
who never said I love you aloud
who vanquished before vanishing.There's a skinny mahlink here, a real nudnik
he is arrogant
he doesn't shut up
he is stubborn
My mother says he has a good heart
but he eats with his mouth open
and he is constantly...
well, constantly here.
I folded up the sheets with all their fragrances
got rid of the futon
and put signs upon the gate.
He holds those words bound to him
as a sign on the frontlet between his eyes
and bound close to his heart.
Even in anger I hear the Song of Solomon
between invectives.
And bubbe may she rest in peace, saying
what is all this mishegas,
love
shmove
he's a good man
he loves you
you train him
you love him.
So kinder (this lesson while you're fressen)
nourish hearts with love more robust than passion
you could do worse than to give up the
poet for a pretzel man.