No More Birthdays by Hal Sirowitz

No More Birthdays

by Hal Sirowitz

Don’t swing the umbrella in the store,

Mother said. There are all these glass jars

of spaghetti sauce above your head

that can fall on you, & you can die.

Then you won’t be able to go to tonight’s party,

or go to the bowling alley tomorrow.

And instead of celebrating your birthday

with soda & cake, we’ll have

anniversaries of your death with tea

& crackers. And your father and i won’t

be able to eat spaghetti anymore, because

the marinara sauce will remind us of you.

This poem was published in Sirowitz's 1996 book, Mother Said (Crown). He died on October 17, 2025, at 76, from complications due to Parkinson's. His website is still up (as of this writing) and has more of his poetry, plus links to his books.

There is not much to be said about this poem except maybe thank you, Hal Sirowitz, for the humor! So much poetry today is what I am calling Trauma Porn, I am happy to be reminded that other poets, besides myself, are/were able to see humor in the world.

Sirowitz followed up in 1998 with Father Said, which continued what he started in this book: turning things his parents said into poems.

Those of us who had/have Nervous Nellie parents can relate. And as frustrating as these bits of "advice" are when given, they are funny after time has separated us from the actual event (or when they happen to others).

I do want to state that I think the title is particularly strong here. He could have called this poem Marinara or In Gristedes or When I Was Eight. Meh.

"No More Birthdays" is definitely more provocative. It is definitely a title to lure in readers looking through a journal's Table of Contents. Also, this title is a final summation of the entire poem, the final outcome of what the poem imagines.

And there is a certain brilliance and stunning creativity that takes one from swinging an umbrella in a supermarket aisle to we "won’t be able to eat spaghetti" because the marinara makes the parents sad as it reminds them not only of their dead son but how he died. (I love that it is specifically the marinara that will prevent them from eating spaghetti after their son's strange supermarket accident.)

Please check out more of Hal Sirowitz's work! And remember to look for humor wherever it exists and don't swing your umbrella around!