Had my father been a believer, his idea of heaven
would have been a top-coat lined with plastic pouches
holding chilled martinis
to be slit open and sipped
on the commuter train every evening
after a late afternoon stint at the Oyster Bar
in Penn Station.
His mother, staunch Methodist, rabid teetotaler,
had prayed for the destruction
of every brewery, distillery and winery.
Too demure to enter smoky saloons, raise her fist
at errant drunks, she’d bent her will to shaping him,
the apple who rolled down hill,
away, far from her tree.
Published in Tapestry, an Anthology of Adult Learners Writing