Bon vivant he was, always holding a big cigar;
A raconteur with no small inventory of Yiddish
jokes; a twinkle for beautiful women, a fine
appreciation for art; art everywhere. His daughter
draws her legs up onto the bed like a teenager
ready for an hours-long phone call; opens the box
to finger the gold wristwatch softened to a rosy
patina after years of stillness on velvet. Her father’s
watch. She caresses the still-crisp linen handkerchief
that always peeked out of his suit pocket like
a capuchin nun against a tweedy sky. She jiggles
cufflinks and shirt studs in her hand like winning
dice thrown in the floating gaming rooms, one
constant in her hometown during the good years,
yet especially in the bad. Slowly, she drops everything
back into the box except the watch which she scales
up her forearm until it stops rolling down to her
narrow wrist. She walks toward her vanity table,
powders her nose, dabs on Fire and Ice, then enters
kitchen to set the table. Tonight it will be the pretty
plates, candles, cloth napkins, Glancing at the watch
every few steps, she recalls one of her father’s
old jokes. Laughs. Yes, a joke for his birthday. She’ll
tell it to the girls tonight. A good joke.
Father would love that more than cake.
