Unconquered By Years Poem by Charles Chaim Wax

Herbert F staggered
into the Teacher’s Center
made it to the couch
flopped next to me
saying,
“What a night!
I was a cross-dresser
in the dream. Her Royal Highness,
Bessie B. Clock,
threw a gala soiree. I wore high heels
and had on a low cut
black sequined dress
a fabulous blonde wig
when out of nowhere
Mr. Birnbaum appeared
wearing a red mini-skirt
and smiled at me
then said, ‘Don’t I know you? ’
I said, ‘Why, sir,
my mother never allows me
to converse with old men.’
He said, ‘I’ve been admiring you
from afar the entire evening.’ Suddenly
I kissed him on the lips,
then he keeled over. Everyone stopped
what they were doing
and looked at him.
A guy said, ‘I’m a doctor.’ Then he immediately
pounded his chest
after a few wallops
he said, ‘He is no more.’
A thin man dressed
as a vampire said, ‘Poison lipstick
the kiss of death.’
I said, ‘No, no.
I bought it at Woolworth’s.’ Nevertheless
‘The kiss of death’
echoed around the room
and I woke up.”
The next day
a note appeared
over the time clock:
Mr. Nat Birnbaum
passed away last night
from a massive heart attack. Funeral
arrangements to be announced.
Herbert F moaned,
“Life,
how brief, how brief...
what do you make of it, Bernstein?
heart attack
coming the day after my dream.”
I said gently,
“You never mentioned
the color of
your lipstick.”
Herbert F became sullen
and I was about to speak when he said,
“It shouldn’t have ended like this:
dreaming of him in
red mini-skirt
after all, he won the Purple Heart.”
Suddenly
tears streamed from his eyes
and he whispered,
“In his youth
so long ago
a hero.”