Dad gripped mom’s casket
with all the strength he thought he’d lost.
His eyes interrogated the approaching grave,
his love, his loss and the God who stayed.
We watched mom’s casket fall, oblivious
to the wind, the clouds and the bowed heads.
The cantor chanted the Yizgadal.
Some words I still remembered
from my Yeshiva days.
Those I forgot
still lost in argument.
Gary Kay is a retired English and Reading professor, who taught at Broward College for 30 years. His poems have been published in over 35 journals.