Cry Me a River

Hudson Review, The, Summer 2003 by McMahon, Lynne

It's the reverse of birthdays, this laying out

outside the meats and cheese, cruets of oil

standing sentry at the table and each guest

barely able to breathe in the funerary wreaths

of citronella haze. Eleven is too late to eat,

someone says, we're past hunger

(we did the last of the absinthe

as the flame went under)-we wonder what

we're doing here, feigning cheerfulness

when the cake appears, applauding

as the fireflies come out. The bad news is

(this from a scientist in the crowd) they're

evolving out of their syncopated lights;

some predator has evolved a liking

for the jazzy lit Lampyridae. The good news is

we won't be here to see. To not see, rather.

This matters, we think, on our birthday.

This stinks. We should fling ourselves

to the ground. But one of us, already down

on her back in the yard, has begun to sing: "Told me

love was too plebeian / Told me you were through

with me and-" swooping up to the big finish under

the trees in the two a.m. torch-lit shade and we're made

entirely happy that birthdays are sad, the way

jazz makes us nervous but the blues makes us glad.