This is about a boy moments before being introduced at his post–bah mitzvah bash. I was in a hotel lobby talking to a friend when he passed by with his parents. He was all nerves and anticipation. I immediately sensed this was the biggest moment of his life.

What once seemed the faintest flick of light,
     Has hurried forth unto this gala night;
And the short he viewed in bedtime theatre,
     Now heeds the call of the bandleader.

Parents beside, he stands ever nervous —
     A diff’rent dare than the synagogue service,
Where he spat out verse and chanted rhymes,
     Of his luckless lineage, so sublime.

In shirt and tie, Saturday’s best,
     Well-earned praises he soon shall accept,
‘Long with the chills of a hundred more leers,
     Than the aggregate sum of thirteen years.

With gentle whisper his mother assures,
     “The hum of the crowd will soon be a blur.”
But the helpless fretting of untold days,
     Has spiraled into a manic malaise.

Heavy with dew from the sickly suspense,
     From the scourge of time he hath no defense; for
It’s always the longest, the time just before,
     The final steps through manhood’s door.