She didn’t live the Greek life,
but she lived her life.
She didn’t have a big fat Greek wedding
but a little skinny WASPy wedding.
She called gyros
Guy Rose
& thought Greeks were Grecians
who had invented the urn.
When her mom found her long-lost husband
in Athens, Georgia,
she began to study her long-lost father’s
mythology & methodology
but soon went back to saying, “Mama, mia”
& putting too much parmesan cheese
on her spaghetti,
for the half that was Italian
included her whole tongue—
in speech & taste.

She had triumphed in 2 battles—
the enemy having left behind a battle scar
that she wistfully referred to as her breastplate;
the first battle had taken her left breast,
the second,
her right,
& it was only after she had beat the cancer
that she saw the road warrior in front of her,
blazing a burning rubber warpath at 95 miles an hour,
ultimately losing the war that everyone was fighting in
without even knowing they were a soldier.

As the fortysomething
took a stroll on Redemption Road,
she wondered about her purpose,
for in the child,
there was innocence,
& in the aged,
there was wisdom.
She told the angel beside her,
who neither guarded her nor waited for her,
“I am not so innocent,
nor am I so wise,”
& the angel answered,
“Yet you take care of them both—
protecting the Innocents
while preserving the dignity of the Wise.”