For Leona

When I finally went,

you held my toe and told me

“Well, Ralph,

now I can crank up the AC

and you won’t complain”

The big black dog cried

and the Jamaican nurses cried

and you read Kaddish in transliteration

from a sheet of printer paper

Your mother did not roll over

in her grave, though you thought

she would

The grandchildren remember how

I hid the afikomen in the same place

every Passover (under my chair)

and they remember my suspenders

and starched shirts, how I never bought smaller ones

even though I was shrinking

Please remind them

that I used to sit at the head of the dinner table,

that I took them sailing,

that I told them

I loved them

even though I thought it might be

too late

(Oh, and the big black dog

His ears wouldn’t point like that if I hadn’t

wrapped them in medical tape for

his first few months

home, you know

Please tell him I’m sorry

I couldn’t take him to the park)

And Leona,

I knew

from our first date when I slipped

on ice on 43rd Street -

found a diamond frozen there,

brushed off the frost with a warm glove,

never would have found it if I

hadn’t fallen

So even though it might be late now

like it was those last few nights I slept

in a bed next to ours

I would like you to know

that even though I was your rudder

for fifty-four years, I will always

be your bay