Its nine o’clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in,
There’s an old man sitting next to me,
Staring into his tonic and gin.
He says, son, can you play me a memory?
I’m not really sure how it goes,
But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete,
When I wore a younger man’s clothes.
A memory . . .
He remembered that one. It was sad, it was sweet, and he knew it complete, when he wore a younger man’s clothes . . .
He was a veteran of the 6-Day War, a veteran of the Yom Kippur War, a veteran of the invasion of Lebanon. He was a son of Holocaust victims, an old man tired of the killing, the hate, the self-righteousness of victims who create other victims and call it justice.