My mother, describing her mother, fought back tears
It's weird, I thought, the intimacy of seeing someone try
Not to cry in a close-up on the screen
Cousin Lincoln told a story about the Pietà
He saw at the Metropolitan Museum
And after a silence of some time
Grandma turned to him and said
"You know, I think of myself as a Jew
But I really love Jesus"
And we sit cross-legged on the edge of the bed
Leaning into the laptop to hear what's just been said
In the manner of a modern family honoring the dead
Aunt Susan, in her one-room schoolhouse, sang Grandma's favorite songs
Simple hymns of love and loss
And though her connection was unstable
She was able to get her message, more or less, across
We sit cross-legged on the edge of the bed
Leaning into the laptop to hear what's just been said
In the manner of a modern family honoring the dead
At the end of the afternoon, Grandma's grief-shattered husband
She'd met in the fall of 1939
Milkshake at the Automat in Morningside Heights
Before he was shipped off to Europe to fight
Fifty years, not a word, not a sight
Till the touchstone phone rang in 1995
"Raymond, it's Judith; my husband has died"
Back to New York, and they gave it a try
And the photographs of great-grandchildren multiplied
These two ancient lovers walking side by side
His body ravaged and hers turned to light
He raised his hand to speak at last
And everyone held their breath or gasped
As he said, "Goodbye, my darling, goodbye"