Try to remember moments you can’t know.
Not just the long slow summers
at the beach. The high rolling waves you rode. The sand crabs’ nips.
The time your mother took you to see
Jack Kennedy, hatless in the bitter wind
coming in off the East River as he leaned
over the five-foot-tall labor leader
and warmed the old man’s hand in both of his,
hair on fire in the bright winter sun.
You should remember moments you can’t know.
Not just your father speeding through the Seder,
your mother’s off-key voice that cracked
as she tried in vain—every year without fail—
to reproduce her father’s niggun for the closing song:
Chasal siddur pesach kehil’khato.