By Anne Whitehouse
My parents were rarely on the same wavelength.
Most of the time they talked at each other,
not to each other. But here they are,
by a quirk of the Hebrew calendar,
yoked forever and forever,
until the end of time,
sharing the same Yahrzeit,
although one died in February
and the other in March,
two years apart.
Every year I pray for them together
and speak their names together,
before my congregation.
Copyright Whitehouse 2022
Anne Whitehouse is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently Outside from the Inside (Dos Madres Press, 2020). She has also written a novel, Fall Love. Recent honors include 2018 Prize Americana for Prose, 2017 Adelaide Literary Award in Fiction, 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, 2016 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com
All work by Anne Whitehouse