Sitting next to your sister at the old
people’s table of your niece’s birthday
celebration, you’re playing your part
perfectly: quiet, shy and cranky, wishing
you were home watching the Yankees,
trying to remember one single party
you didn’t want to leave sooner
than you did. You got here an hour
early, set your baseball cap on a bench
as you stood for group photos in the garden,
barely able to button the sport coat
you hadn’t worn since years before
Covid, half smiling, hoping to hide
the ever-widening gap in your shifting
teeth. Ushered into a side room, you
stuck toothpicks in tasty Asian things,
dipped them in gooey sauces and tried
not to eat too many as you overheard
a group of guys talk Knicks playoffs.

At the table. you keep leaning over,
complaining to Donna in a half-shout
about the disco-techno-garbage blasting
through the speakers and thinking
it would be funny if Chuck Berry
had been invited, duck-walking
through “Sweet Little Sixteen”,
watching all the girls straining
to look like sexy women, a shorter,
tighter black dress on each,
and wondering how difficult
it would be for Chuck to keep
his hands to himself. When
the DJ shouts for everyone
to get on the dance floor,
you stand, watch the dancers,
your niece and nephew, letting
loose, and clap to the bass line.

Back at the table, to your right,
the only other person you know,
a cousin you hadn’t seen in years,
one you never liked. Probably
not her fault. Her father was a smug,
know-it-all kind of guy who talked
down to you, but worse he acted
like he was better than your father.
You kept hoping he’d go too far
one Sunday and Dad would take him
in the yard, beat the crap out of him
while the aunts cleared the lasagna
plates. Still, Debbie was annoying
on her own, nosy and a tattle-tale
who never gave you reason to change
your mind even if she now hates
Trump more than you. She drove
with her long-time friend all the way
from Princeton and no one officially
knows if they’re a couple or not.

Diana seems too nice for Debbie,
tells you her niece was recently
diagnosed with autism, Stage 3 at 5
years old. You ask a lot of questions.
The kid stopped talking and started
rocking, she only tolerates a handful
of food textures, temperatures, avoids
eye contact. Like Jesse when you first
met him at the same age. You’re not sure
how much to tell her beyond the basics
of your visits, how much more he talks
and eats nowadays, clearly communicates
his needs, lives in a semi-independent
situation, a generally happy guy, you know
all the good stuff, the way you enjoy, love
spending weekends with him. She sounds
optimistic with a wait-and-see-ready-
for-anything, she-loves-her-niece-no-
matter-what attitude and you know
she has no idea what they’re in for.

On stage, your brother talks about
Lexie. You’ve known him for 52 years
and he rarely says anything worth hearing
except that time he talked about mom
at her funeral Mass, every word exactly
right, bringing her alive, showing all
his love as his voice struggled to stay
on course. Occasionally you look at him,
see his perfect Donna Reed, Leave It
To Beaver suburban life: lovely home,
lawn needing a trim, long-hours, high-
paying, boring-ass office job, something
to do with insurance for major companies
you can’t believe, but he swears he likes,
a beautiful first grade teaching wife,
1 son, 1 daughter, both honor-rolled,
seemingly not too cool to be too mean,
a not so tiny black and white terrier
and sometimes you shake your head,
wonder how did he get to be so lucky,
how did he make it happen, how
does he hold it together? You know
you couldn’t, and you always thought,
even before he gave you a kidney,
good for him, he deserves all of it,
and until today when you watched
his face as he talked about Lexie,
the first time the nurse handed her
to him, all cleaned and dried,
and he held her on his lap
and she screamed loud enough
to bring the hospital walls down
then put her fist in her mouth
and the quiet grew holy, you never
wished you were there at Jesse’s birth,
that he was your blood, your bones,
ever wanted to know if you could
love him more than you already do.