A TOAST FOR THE LIKES OF TWO

Who was it wrote, “If women

had mustaches, they would somehow

make them beautiful.

Look

what they’ve done with breasts!”

Who disagrees?

Doesn’t the Bible

say a woman just an inch

from death will keep an eye

for color?

And don’t philosophers

assert that women sacrifice

the ultimate on beauty’s altar?

And love’s?

Why scoff at that?

Are the male gods of money,

fame, and power more deserving?

What’s money but guilt?

What’s fame

but knowing people you will never

know will know your name?

What’s power but pride translated

into force?

Are these worth more

than what sustains us to the end?

Consider Bertha.

Eighty, blind

and diabetic, she believed that death’s

real name was Harold.

“I want

to know what Harold has to offer,”

she would say.

She’d seen

her children’s children’s children

and presumed she had a poet’s right

to give a name to death, if so

she chose.

Chuckling to herself,

she rocked and waited for this last

adventure in her life…

Then

there was Jane, who mothered seven

and left unfinished all her art

by choice as if to prove

that incompleteness is the rule

of life where nothing ends

the way it should… or when.

Two weeks before her funeral

she called all seven to her bed

to say, “I hope to see you all

again… but not right away…”

So here’s to the honor of Bertha,

and here’s to the glory of Jane!

Let them be spoken of wherever

beauty’s lovers gather to applaud

the beauty of love.

Let them

not rest in peace but thrive

in everlasting action, doing

what they love the most.

Who wants

a heaven that’s equivalent to one

long sleep?

Those crypted, supine

saints in their basilicas can keep

the dream of their Jerusalem.

The soul

was meant for more than that.

Pray for us, St. Bertha.

Pray for us, St. Jane.

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