Mid-March
after W.C.Williams
If, when I sit here in my study
on a March afternoon,
the pink cherry tree out the window
rapturous in the late day sun,
my feet resting on a kilim cushion perched
on a pulled-out desk drawer,
a modest glass of spirits by my elbow
the closest I can come now
to the schnapps my bubbeh failed
to carry back to the shtetl
when the distiller saw she had bare feet
and sent her to the cobbler instead
to buy herself some shoes,
and my mouth watering at
the pickled herring I’ll serve later
to my wife and myself,
and maybe build a small flame
in the fireplace crusted
with the charred soot
of our laughter and our longings,
who shall say
I am not the happy genius
of my household,
though I do not dance to admire
my bare flanks, face, arms and buttocks
in the cloudy bedroom mirror,
but whirl instead to upset
darkness and celebrate
the swelling bosom
of the rising gibbous moon,
what the shamans have told us since long ago
is the sign for gratitude.
