The Favor

Wear that pearl necklace of your mother's

for me tonight. Seeing our flaws

in others often embitters us,

I know, but I'm sure I would have loved

your father precisely for his famous

ingenuousness, and his willingness,

always, to be deceived. Yes,

he paid hundreds for a rosary

of fetching imitations, but it was

years and years before anyone

was the wiser-and all the while,

I imagine, it must have been

an endless source of pleasure

for him to picture those avid divers

sporting like dolphins in the wave

of the proprietor's hand, to see them plunging

smartly, time and again, from spidery piers

and looting the bottoms

of turquoise coves, just so the woman

he never stopped courting

might look a little lovelier,

Saturday evenings, on his arm.

And you cannot tell me

he was cheated, his devotion

cheapened by this string of lies.

For in his eyes, I'm sure,

by candlelight, by streetlamp,

by the dim aquarium glow

of the shuddering streetcar

bearing them home, this luster

spoke for everything left unsaid

between them, for words that would

ring false. Gather the hair now

up off of your neck, so I can

hook the clasp, not to ask

that history repeat itself,

exactly, but so as to see ourselves

in light of generous notions

of consequence and consent,

shared error and forbearance,

which so often, I'm persuaded,

adorn favorably entwined lives.