The Cenotaph

The street life went 
on all night outside 
their kitchen until their 
laughter-last shouts 
shattered the dawn.

In Brooklyn, the rabbi reading 
the Times would only see
the shattered picture window,
the blood on the rusty door,
the broken mugs, two forks
on the breakfast table,
the rounds that formed holes,
red balloons amidst the 
night clothing on the wall.

“They did not leave this place
unremembered,” would be 
the homily he tells the knesset,
leaving them wondering where 
does life really begin and end?— 
leaving them wandering  two score 
years between womb and wound,
not even a silk pillow their friend.