Measures of

I have already passed the age of counsel,not that anyone ever came for it, only my sonwho once asked me How do you know you'rein love? which made everything in the kitchenshine with my wisdom. He went on to marrya girl who has her own opinions about mothers-in-law. There was a mouse slipping acrossthe kitchen last night. Let it be a gecko, I saidto its shadow, let it be a lizard, but this morningthere were droppings by the door whereit waited for the glass to open or disappear,while my Labrador, who can smell a crust of breadfrom a thousand meters away, wagged his tail.And since women keep their girlfriends, I madea pact with mine: we'll live together whenour husbands die and save one bottle of morphineeach, because at one hundred it's as if you werealready dead, and at ninety my mother clapsher hands as I turn on the lights, and says, Oh, lights!Her apartment heated to a sauna, steam on allthe windows, her helper barefoot even thoughit's February. I put my hand on her shoulder and say,It's just a job, another piece of time to box upand label: the age of commandments, the age ofdiscernment, and I wonder how a mouse can slipbeneath the baseboard; is its body an illusion,only tiny bones under all that fluff? I try to thinkof famous mice so I can give it a name, but I amin the age of forgetfulness, left out by the sages,the age of crying at inappropriate, and also appropriatetimes, the age of sunscreen and my own particularpillow case, and I notice that the age of Gevurahis translated as power, when actually it's restraint,as in Who is a hero? He who controls himself.And it is one crumb of comfort that the wise menalso turned to dust and blew away, but left methese clues, so that I can enter the age of listeningto words that keep changing, but also stay the same,till I know them by heart, which is like a refrain,the continual repetition of myself, into the slippery now.