What is Wrong with Jim?

I shared a memory from childhood,
something I considered sacred,
and he cracked a joke.

A memory that determined my life
from an aunt so crippled
with osteoporosis she couldn’t write,
but lay curled on her side in a bed:
my father’s sister
to whom he wrote every week.

What she said, “Do not forget the little people.”
It was when she learned
I was leaving for Germany on a Fulbright.
She feared I’d let it go to my head,
so she said, again: “Don’t forget the little people.”
And I never did.

What she said to me was something sacred.
To me, it was something sacred,
a promise made
to someone I respected and loved.
And this asshole had to make a joke:
“What little people?
How small? Maybe up to your knees?”

I didn’t hit him, but was sorely tempted.
I can’t understand why he said it.
Because he’s a lawyer,
so nothing is sacred to him?
How on earth can I understand?
Is it simply because he’s a lawyer?

I do not forget,
not so much what it meant to me,
but the disrespect
shown to someone I dearly loved
and a memory
to which I’ve tried to live up…

at least the trust
I placed in him as a friend
that thought he shared.