​Rosh Hashana, 2016

​
Our world, according to the Book of Books, 
turns five thousand seven hundred 
seventy-seven years old this Sunday.
I am not certain this is so.

I do know what happened Saturday, 
September thirteenth, nineteen fifty-two
by the Gregorian calendar. My brother, Bill, 
a day after turning twenty-three, spoke  
his marriage vows on Fifth Avenue 
and Fifty-third in a church named
for Thomas, the doubtful Apostle.

He is gone, and I’m the only one 
who knows he was wearing red 
suspenders. He handed me his suit
to carry home as he left with the bride 
for their honeymoon. Crimson dye
had leeched into the posh 
white shirt worn under a jacket 
too warm for the season.

The rosy tinge of the clothes,
their damp and tender weight
are all I recall of that day
though our war planes 
were bombing North China,
and Nehru was pleading for peace.
Uptown, for all I know, a boy 
named Jacob was wrestling
with a boy named Angel.  

The bride, hour by hour,  
in her white satin gown, 
was swelling with my brother’s 
first daughter,
soon to be my niece.
I, a virgin, fifteen years old,
didn’t hear about that until later.