Move Over Gentile

  (No joke, some of my best friends are gentiles....)

If bacon could straighten the wandering Jew
Whilst Euclid spins like a pig on a spit
For, I noticed the sidewalk won't give him his due
Since it curves around obstacles... trees.. to wit;

Some say that hunger brings out the tiger in you
Others give lovely and profound advice
Some only love life when they've had a few
Then measure but, once; and cut, oddly, twice.

If taken by odds that you think aren't your due
You might take to praying to God for a bit
The diaphanous hanging warmth of your blues
Blown 'bout by Grace no man can inherit

Once shaken with shame, on this path curlicued
The Classics in shambles... the libraries dump...
By the grave with a veiled but broad daylit widow
Who's head held up high, above shoulders that slump

Ask her, though veil there obscures her eyes,
"Is this a loved one, beneath the old weathered stone?
Whom do you honor with your dress and your guise?
Does the savor of life follow the host?"

Hidden beneath the black fine worked fabric
Through the trick of the light, and tradition too
The eyes of this loved one, turn to your own
And given the voice, the mouth, too, you assume.

"There were stretches, I guess, where I was sometimes unhappy,
Where I hated, at times, who he was, what he'd been...
But, there was joy, and there were moments, circumscribed by our marriage
That gave an address of the person I'd been.

His name was... it's still strange to say that,
Charles L. Cohen, when I took the name,
And it's safe to say, from this grave where I've sat,
Many times I've realized I'd do it again."

Her gloved hand rose, to the edge of her veil,
When the voice therein had finished her words
As she lifted what hid a West Russian face,
I felt my own take a slight pinkish turn.

"We wait all our lives, for things, young man.
Things of the world, recommended and forbidden.
And I wait yet again; do you understand?
But, not for the things that I've already been given."

I looked at her still, silent, form for awhile,
Somewhat speechless, ashamed? I couldn't be certain;
Perhaps, like a monkey, I gave her a smile,
Oh, she beamed back at me, of that be assured.

We turned our sweet mirth to Charles old stone,
I had no desire to ask after its years,
And I took her hand, as we stood there alone,
Some distance from shame, and let fall some tears..