“Couples”

[Here’s our next B.N. poem!]

Couples

It is again a day in late summer, fin-de-siècle.
I am speaking to you over the sounds of the sea

Over sharks stirring up the sandy bottom.
I am talking because in this seaside town, music

Pours from car windows freakish and vagrant,
And because we know that in our future rooms

Only one of us bathed in TV light will go on
To descend into arm chairs alone. I hope I die first.

I have taken to watching old couples.
Imagining they all met at a New Years Eve party 1946,

The music of victory and Benny Goodman filled the air waves.
All the women wore boldly feathered

Or veiled hats, and a gang of plaintive apparitions
Bent to kiss the white gloved hand of a deserted bride.

In a restaurant last Monday I watched from across the room
As a man leaned over his wife and whistled

Into her ear, and for an instant they both seemed to share
The need to celebrate a nostalgic tune, to remember

Walking once arm in arm in the river light.
This afternoon I am watching again through a window

As summer dries up and drifts away. The promise
Of a harvest moon hangs in the air, a party decoration,

And already I remember our trip to the beach as
Some matter-of-fact talk in the kitchen.

For now, an amicable rain is the measure of our existence,
We've returned in time to praise the alchemy of industry,

Having lived long enough together to see on the street of our
Own Neighborhood, red Novas, blue Falcons, a gold Phoenix.

B.N.
© to the author, 1983-2010