Saul Bennett
Glass
For a living my father sold
surgical glass for a major operation
in the belly of America
that as a practical matter
excluded Jews. Because he came
a young man with a tiny Jewish
firm annexed in 1936
my father was granted
a stay. He stayed a salesman
but rose up, in a way,
to sales executive, bossing,
including himself,
a Rockefeller skyscraper
two-person office. "Eastern
Branch Manager," his card said.
As his father had instructed him to hit
the road for work halfway
through high school, a Jew forever
short a secondary diploma,
my father remained approximately
frozen. I'm not sure he minded
that much but it burned
my mother now and then.
He was productive and respected
by customers for his adored
test tubes, beakers and slides. For him
the affection of some seemed
love, it came out when five days before
scheduled semi-retirement suddenly
he died. Condolences appeared from many
in the organization. In the deep cream
stationary of one, a bona fide
sales executive who began
with my father, an eternity
past postmark, still, you can bathe,
generously, in the brokered tears.
To the widow was typewritten
he was sorry he, who could have done
more to advance her husband,
should have and had not.