Dear Isaac

You were already an old man

when I first saw you

In a Swenson’s on Fourth Street.

Your head was soft and scrubbed

bald, your hunched shoulders

disappeared into the brush of a suit,

your forehead was pressed high

above your parched blue eyes.

I eavesdropped as you read

each item on the menu

like an aged cheder boy.

You shook you head no

to spilt pea soup,

no to a vegetable plate,

no to tunafish, no

to a cobb chicken salad.

I came back to the green booth

by the window again and again,

always pointing to the spot 

where I first saw my sad Singer.

I searched Second Avenue

years after the theaters closed,

years after you settled uptown,

years after your cronies moved on,

years after you sweated

through an infested night

in a dive on 17th Street.

I searched for your bitter coffee

and cafeteria tales of Trotsky,

Stalin and Rabbi Nachman,

Herzl, and the other ghosts.

I sit these days in Eclair

where I once watched you

eat a chopped egg salad platter,

and spoon vegetable broth

with your thin scrolling lips.

I sit among old women

In flowered shifts, old men

In blue striped suits.

Some make sounds

as they smack their food.

The waiter hums very good

very good no matter what I order,

and always suggests just a little

slide of pastry as I pay the bill.

 - By Penny Cagan

For Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1904-1991