TURKEY BIRTHDAZE

TURKEY BIRTHDAZE

’T’was the day before Thanksgiving

and all through the houses

plump turkeys were thawing, not petit grouses!

Though the cupboards were groaning

all the tables were laid bare. What? No carousing?

My birthday comes but once a year.

"We forgot," cried relatives and spouses

to friends and neighbors moaning in thin air.

They scolded their watches & their PDAs too,

"it's not that we don't care. Really, we do.

Forgive us. We really forgot. It wasn't a plot.

Forgive us, our memory's got dry rot. Or ergot.

We'll make it up to you at Christmas. Never fear."

Lest I complain, "let them eat crow," (or cake)

one year, even my mom forgot, alas, heartbreak!

I don't hold my breath lightly, nor do I lend an ear,

for tomorrow will come when pigs learn to fly

by all those pumpkin and mince pies in the sky

without gobbling them up, none for the throngs.

So much for the promises of yesteryear—

or even next year. Now, don't get me wrong.

Indeed I long for that glutton of a beast

with all the trimmings of a glorious feast.

I dispense fowl blessings reiterated with grace.

Hope springs eternal, so I save a small place

for dessert — because it might be a bit of cake.

OK, I’m quirky if I confuse turkeys with candles.

And tomorrow when we dismantle the big bird

I’ll blow out the drumstick with a wing and a prayer.

I won’t let this bailiwick of a pilgrim’s parlance,

betrayer of fowlish deeds, with dissonance absurd

occlude my birthday with a yam dance. Not a chance!

Conclude your fawning and hemming and hawing.

Pass the blasted dressing. For next year, never fear

my birthday will reappear on Thanksgiving Day. OK?

Pity my poor cousin born on Christmas Eve

and not to grieve on such a moveable feast.

11/24/2004