Sit Shiva

My mother, describing her mother
Fought back tears, it’s weird, I thought
The intimacy of seeing someone try
Not to cry in close-up on a screen

Cousin Lincoln told a story about the Pietà
He saw at the Metropolitan Museum
And after a silence of some time
Grandma turned to him and said
You know, I think of myself as a Jew
But I really love Jesus

And we sit cross-legged on the edge of the bed
Leaning into the laptop to hear what’s just been said
In the manner of a modern family honoring the dead

Aunt Susan, in her one-room schoolhouse
Sang grandma’s favorite songs, simple hymns
Of love and loss. And though her connection
Was unstable, she was able to get
Her message, more or less, across

And we sit cross-legged on the edge of the bed
Leaning into the laptop to hear what’s just been said
In the manner of a modern family honoring the dead

At the end of the afternoon
Grandma’s grief-shattered husband
Whom she’d met in the fall of 1939
Milkshake at the Automat in Morningside Heights
Before he was shipped off to Europe to fight
Fifty years, not a word, not a sight
’Till the touchtone phone rang in 1995

Raymond, it’s Judith, my husband has died
Back to New York, and they gave it a try
And the photographs of great-grandchildren multiplied
These two ancient lovers walking side by side
His body ravaged, and hers turned to light
He raised his hand to speak at last
And everyone held their breath or gasped
As he said: Goodbye, my darling, goodbye