THE GHOSTHOOD OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK

For Ira Gershwin

1
"Where do we go from here?" she asked.
"We stay here," I answered,
"and make its happiness
as permanent as possible."
I have never known or shared more
than I did at that moment
in rare boy-meets-girl dream
of this Friday the 13th predawn.


2
The age difference was, I feared, illegal
and stacked generously in my honor.
Old men, I thought, do not dare win love
from any but fellow time travelers.
It is Beatrice's mother who answers the door
coat slung over her arm
ready for a night on the town.
Good morning, Mr Prufrock,
I could hear mother and daughter ask me,
"Where do we go from here?"


3
The odds were perfectly against me
just like Ira Gershwin sang they would be
on the luckiest day of my life.


4
The fog's the same, I thought,
no museum in any city of the world
will keep its charm
knowing, for once, from prophecy
sung by Fred Astaire
that this was the last day
of life without meaning.


5
The dream only got better.
"You will haunt me
for the rest of my life," she said
astonished by but smiling at this fact.
"You will be ghost of this night
gifted to me
for the sole purpose
of hope."


6
Who would want such a dream to end?
It didn't. It hasn't,
it is continuing
by dictating its further adventures
in the wakened here and now
when youth and age
are both places
only a fool would leave.

--David Federman, Narberth, Friday, November 13, 2009