Who was he, why was he the one assignedTo drive me from the house to the cemetery?
The two of us in his Buick or Packard or someColonial make, De Soto, Pontiac, Plymouth.
I don’t remember who had died, what auntOr uncle or cousin we were going to bury.
I don’t know why he spent the hour-long driveLecturing a twelve-year-old about the faults
Of Peggy Lee, whose singing he denounced.I barely knew who she was. Maybe he’d heard
That I was “musical.” I do rememberThat was the year new cars were all bright colors:
Two-toned vermillion and baby blue, heraldicWing shapes with edgy arabesques of chrome.
Some other uncle explained that ten years afterThe war it was to hell with black and khaki,
People want spices. On the road to the graveyard,Maybe the singer and I both stunk of the present
To Izzy Kasoff, who married Dave Pinsky’s sisterAnd adopted Dave’s daughter when the mother died—
Maybe his grievance was with not death or musicBut the great story of it all becoming past.
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