l'chaim (1) jessica rivchin The heart is a resilient thing, I suppose, as I peer at you across plates of shrimp and sweet potatoes— You are pretending to watch the blues band, chin resting on your fist, but I see you noticing my long legs disappearing into thigh-high boots while I sip my apple-green martini. You lean forward across the table, your hairline silver beneath the lights. It’s almost too much – you, the music, this city… An old woman with an expertly painted face cried on my city-bound bus tonight. I wonder if things ever get easier… Is she on her way to the funeral of a lifelong love, whispering the Kaddish, clutching dusty pictures from some long-ago wedding day? Or perhaps she has been left by a clove-smoking lover, Too young to know That she watched him across the breakfast nook and thought, This is it, this is finally it--? I want to say something clever but I cannot catch her lavender-lidded eyes. I turn to the window, to traffic bunched at angles around the Lincoln Tunnel. We begin to inch forward, and I I wonder why people come all this way just for some decent blues. (1) Common Hebrew toast meaning “to life”