Wedding Music

How utterly ridiculous that she survived
specifically to see her youngest granddaughter
get married after ten agonizing months
post-brain surgery and several rounds
of chemo for a tumor that was
the kind that grows back to finally kill you
only to be prevented from leaving
the care facility that’s become home—
having given up her condo when
she could not remember “apple penny umbrella”
or where she’d left the car—held hostage
by a broken elevator for god’s sake, and since
everyone here has known forever
about the importance of this wedding
because that’s the kind of place it is,
sharing grandchildren’s nachas and mitzvahs—
between staff’s urgent calls to Mitsubishi for
service and caregiver texts back and forth
to alert the bride, everyone wants
to kill someone, even the violinist, who has
another gig and whose fingers are getting stiff
in the giant ballroom kept cold until the mob
of attendees are seated for dinner
and dancing at which point it gets hot,
not advisable in combination with the open bar
and slinky cocktail garb, but even blowing
on them isn’t helping until the cellist
offers his pack of Little Hotties hand warmers,
which she takes gratefully, and just in time,
as the grandmother, looking abashed, dazed,
and yet still somehow regal in a blue dress,
is escorted adorably by two tuxedoed little boys,
and the violinist has the sudden urge to stand,
salute the grandmother, who barely made it
and her standing prompts an ovation, clapping
and mazel tovs! and only after everyone has sat
back down does it occur to the violinist
that she’s taken something
away from the bride, but honestly,
she doesn’t care—she has her whole life
ahead of her—and she raises her bow, cues
the others and they begin to play.