They had nothing in common
besides being smart New Yorky jews,
Carl was a creator and my mother
an other…

while laughing listening
his 2000-year-old man spinning
in shiny blackness circling
my plastic turntable hypnotizing

me in my bedroom
door mandatory ajar
cigarette smoke creep from my mother’s
room to mine seeping into every crevice

uninvited and staining
while the record re-played
each time it ended, my index finger
relocating the needle gingerly

keeping laughter coming for days
and at night I’d watch black and white
reruns on my tiny Sony trinitron
about a happy family whose father came home

every night even though he tripped
on a single house stair, my finger lingering
on the dial turning the laugh track up
and down low to high lower to highest

controlling and amplifying happiness between
my index finger and my thumb—
Bless the creators (and bless those other types too)
who spin their genius gifts into lifelines

***

Note: The author is a poet and essayist whose mother died a week before Carl Reiner died.

***

Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash