GRIEF Poem: If Only Secular Jews Used Rosaries, by Tamra Plotnick

I’d finger a bead for each death, counting the times
I’ve lost them–
though they still walk the planet.

First bead: Mom bemoans the “lifestyle change” eight years ago:
Dad missed some outing.

Next: my first book is published. She slips the slim volume beneath her glass coffee
table without fanfare.

The calls, the calls, the cradling calls.
I’ve become the crooner
of our mother-daughter lullaby.

My father’s blow-up, “You’ll do what I tell you!”
(invectives never uttered my entire childhood).
His sputtering he’ll empty
a forty-five into his only son.

Each bead would pang, jangling
in a shrouded pocket.