Irving And Bertha At The Aperion Plaza

(Fine Kosher Catering our Specialty)

My mother once had a taffeta gown
in the beautiful plaid of the Clan MacBeth,
its striated bars of cobalt and green
pulsating boldly on a field of rose.
It hung in the closet for many years,
still faintly redolent of "Fracas."
A wedding? A Bar Mitzvah? I never knew,
but loved the faded sepia print.
My father wore a very daring tux
from the store where pimps and jazz musicians shopped,
its crêpe lapels gleaming with a muted sheen,
his broad shoulders widened by its '40's lines,
his face, Byronic, Semitic and pale
beneath the shock of Lenny Bernstein hair,
like hers, so young. So heartbreakingly young.
I found a black and gold Art Déco frame,
slightly older than the photograph itself,
and keep it there, to look at now and then.

I wonder if they danced on that '40's night?
My father had a limp from childhood polio.
My mother, who adored him, made love but seldom danced.
I hope that night she changed her mind and danced,
not wasting the strains of Porter and Berlin
that, doubtless, floated lusciously in the joyous postwar air.

Mitchell Geller