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Matins: A Love Story
Tony and Ethel, ordinary as sunrise,
were displaced New Yorkers
who emigrated to North Jersey
and selected the split level next to ours.
They gave up urban canyons for
glacial lakes. And they adjusted,
as we did to them.
Oh, they had their habits, all right,
or were they quirks, peculiarities?
He’d be out of the garage before dawn,
backing his then brand-new Ford
very slowly down the drive to the only
gated split-rail fence in town.
Then he’d get out, open it, and back up some more.
When he was in the road, he’d get out again,
close the gate, return to the car,
and just as sure as the coming light,
he’d look over his left shoulder
to an upstairs front window of the house
and blow a childlike kiss up to Ethel,
who waited there to receive it.
This went on six mornings a week for fifteen years,
and just as predictably, dependably,
Ethel would never leave the house
the whole week through. On Sunday
mornings, though, they went together
to Our Lady of the Lake, Ethel dressed to the nines
and with her hair piled high.
They may even have gone
to the supermarket on the way home,
for a gossipy rumor persisted that they’d
been spotted at a distant A & P transferring
groceries into little plastic bags while
they walked down the aisles.
Some said they bought cat food,
I guess for a cat more invisible even than Ethel—
but no one could say for one hundred percent
certain about the doubtful cat
because no one had actually been in their house.
They were a curious couple. Eccentric. Odd.
Troublingly different.
Too devoted.
It embarrassed me to watch their sunrise ritual,
but it was compelling, irresistible.
Whenever I found myself up in time to watch,
I would keep my eyes slightly averted,
as though the scene were something
that shouldn’t be looked at straight on.
With slightly lowered eyelids,
I’d hide behind the kitchen curtain
to keep from being seen,
partly because I was ashamed,
but partly because I was intensely drawn
to the romance and beauty and magic
of their morning prayers.
But there was cynicism as well,
for I was an unbeliever.
Maybe they were so close,
I thought, because they were childless.
And might not the readiness of their ritual
be just an empty form?
a formulized substitute for real love?
Yes, that was surely it.
When Ethel died, almost suddenly,
of pancreatic cancer, Tony managed
all the burial business with his
customary marital attentiveness.
(We neighbors wondered, perhaps unkindly,
if Ethel had made all the arrangements herself,
picking out an outfit, hairdo, and funeral home.
We suspected, too, that she had left him
detailed lists and scores of instructions—
cleaning schedules, simple recipes, and
where to store the winter blankets. . . .)
She was laid to rest in a military cemetery,
a deference to Tony’s Normandy landing
fifty years earlier.
And that was that,
except that every Sunday since then,
Tony drives a hundred miles to the cemetery,
and talks to her.
•
We moved long ago and our children
have gone to their own busy lives
that only now and then intersect with ours.
But amid all the changes, it is
Tony who is strangely with me still,
as when I now and then
turn to my wife of forty-two years
and blow her a quiet kiss
across the distance between us.
Punctual
The invitation was casual:
“We’re having some friends, the usual
Crowd. Friday night. Eight sharp.”
But I thought not. To be actual,
That is, to be strictly factual,
I’m more the “eightish” type.
From Ashes to Ashes
At the end, a man’s real remains
Are not found in his casket or urn,
But more often in his tie stains—
Or the hole in his sweater from a cigarette burn.
Tony and Ethel, ordinary as sunrise,
were displaced New Yorkers
who emigrated to North Jersey
and selected the split level next to ours.
They gave up urban canyons for
glacial lakes. And they adjusted,
as we did to them.
Oh, they had their habits, all right,
or were they quirks, peculiarities?
He’d be out of the garage before dawn,
backing his then brand-new Ford
very slowly down the drive to the only
gated split-rail fence in town.
Then he’d get out, open it, and back up some more.
When he was in the road, he’d get out again,
close the gate, return to the car,
and just as sure as the coming light,
he’d look over his left shoulder
to an upstairs front window of the house
and blow a childlike kiss up to Ethel,
who waited there to receive it.
This went on six mornings a week for fifteen years,
and just as predictably, dependably,
Ethel would never leave the house
the whole week through. On Sunday
mornings, though, they went together
to Our Lady of the Lake, Ethel dressed to the nines
and with her hair piled high.
They may even have gone
to the supermarket on the way home,
for a gossipy rumor persisted that they’d
been spotted at a distant A & P transferring
groceries into little plastic bags while
they walked down the aisles.
Some said they bought cat food,
I guess for a cat more invisible even than Ethel—
but no one could say for one hundred percent
certain about the doubtful cat
because no one had actually been in their house.
They were a curious couple. Eccentric. Odd.
Troublingly different.
Too devoted.
It embarrassed me to watch their sunrise ritual,
but it was compelling, irresistible.
Whenever I found myself up in time to watch,
I would keep my eyes slightly averted,
as though the scene were something
that shouldn’t be looked at straight on.
With slightly lowered eyelids,
I’d hide behind the kitchen curtain
to keep from being seen,
partly because I was ashamed,
but partly because I was intensely drawn
to the romance and beauty and magic
of their morning prayers.
But there was cynicism as well,
for I was an unbeliever.
Maybe they were so close,
I thought, because they were childless.
And might not the readiness of their ritual
be just an empty form?
a formulized substitute for real love?
Yes, that was surely it.
When Ethel died, almost suddenly,
of pancreatic cancer, Tony managed
all the burial business with his
customary marital attentiveness.
(We neighbors wondered, perhaps unkindly,
if Ethel had made all the arrangements herself,
picking out an outfit, hairdo, and funeral home.
We suspected, too, that she had left him
detailed lists and scores of instructions—
cleaning schedules, simple recipes, and
where to store the winter blankets. . . .)
She was laid to rest in a military cemetery,
a deference to Tony’s Normandy landing
fifty years earlier.
And that was that,
except that every Sunday since then,
Tony drives a hundred miles to the cemetery,
and talks to her.
•
We moved long ago and our children
have gone to their own busy lives
that only now and then intersect with ours.
But amid all the changes, it is
Tony who is strangely with me still,
as when I now and then
turn to my wife of forty-two years
and blow her a quiet kiss
across the distance between us.
Punctual
The invitation was casual:
“We’re having some friends, the usual
Crowd. Friday night. Eight sharp.”
But I thought not. To be actual,
That is, to be strictly factual,
I’m more the “eightish” type.
From Ashes to Ashes
At the end, a man’s real remains
Are not found in his casket or urn,
But more often in his tie stains—
Or the hole in his sweater from a cigarette burn.
I’m a retired teacher
and have been for the
past few months
launching “Remember
When,” a course in
memoir writing for
seniors in retirement
communities in Pasco and
Polk Counties in central
Florida. Maybe you
could say I’m an
educational
entrepreneur.
I might have added that
I write short, pithy,
vernacular poems like
the two I am submitting
here, but that I also
like longer narratives
with lyrical and
meditative riffs, like
the third poem
and have been for the
past few months
launching “Remember
When,” a course in
memoir writing for
seniors in retirement
communities in Pasco and
Polk Counties in central
Florida. Maybe you
could say I’m an
educational
entrepreneur.
I might have added that
I write short, pithy,
vernacular poems like
the two I am submitting
here, but that I also
like longer narratives
with lyrical and
meditative riffs, like
the third poem
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