West Side Story, My Brothers, Mother and Me

I cried for them this afternoon Knew them since the matinee started Saw them fall in love At first sight, the world stopped Everything was silent at the sight of it They looked and were lovers Later that day on their knees Repeating vows that till today They saw only in throw away plays I cried for them, their lost love But not for mother whose long life ended By the Yankee Sluggers creeping disease What was there to cry about? As the blue ice calved from glacier slabs Creased iron plates, made orphans, widows And most aboard but not me or my mother Or the yet unborn twice told tale Tony was told she died, frantic with fear He called out for her but got Chino instead Saw her running to him, delirious with fear and joy He got a bullet instead, tearing threw his back Breaking his heart in half he fell into her arms She covered his face with kisses and tears And I too wept again for what could have been What should have been for mother, died without my tears For I knew not how to give! Instead to those I gave tears so freely But I knew them since the matinee started Who cried for my three brothers Charley, like Marley dragged his chains around And spent a life time sawing them off, Michael who fell From heaven one day, curly hair and welcoming smile Orphaned by mother who just gave him away Brain dead one day in June, the rest followed six months to the day Brother Tom, large lonesome eyes never saw what the world wondered. Water boarded at age five, he left and never returned Last month got cancer and died exactly one month later. I cried today for the matinee lovers, When I should have cried for them.