SANDY MAY
Unregistered User
(2/13/02 5:15 am)
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SWEET SIXTEEN
I grimace
in the snapshot,
squeezed between
a squirmy brother
and widowed
Grandma Ada,
big grin,
all bones--
a month later,
gone .
Shy
in Lord and Taylor's,
royal blue velvet
first formal.
Sly Melvin Altenhaus
bussed in from Bensonhurst
clutching a Japanese
fan.
The bash filled
the posh three-story
house, recently rented,
hastily furnished
from estate sales--
(Dad was flush in silk
button down shirts
after the war-- )
To the day
sixteen years earlier,
Grandpa Maurice
suddenly died,
first tenderly kissing
my forcep-bruised head,
the day I was born.
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