God’s Gentleman
Barbara D.Holender

I wear his battered hat, his bolo tie.
The family album shows my eyes
and mouth are his, his are my crooked fingers
tracing the spidery script of his last letter–
Dearest No. 1 child…

God’s gentleman, the rabbi called him,
and quick-witted, a caring man
whose outer and inner selves were one.
The whole congregation saw me nodding, smiling,
as the words gave my father back to me.

In his name, a Biblical garden
blooms in Arizona. I see my creators
in the cool of the day, walking to and fro.
My father bends to console my mother.
Me too, I say.