What’s this coming from far away?
It’s a faint honking like high-flying geese,
and a variable heartbeat carried on the wind.
I throw down my work because I can tell
something big is going to happen.
Oh boy ― hautbois,
viola di gamba,
horns and bassoons.
It’s Handel’s Water Music
in a stunning crescendo.
Just for me?
I start to dance ―
plié, arabesque
and grande jetté
all the way down
to the river’s edge.
Here it comes.
The party’s at hand ―
50 instruments at full bore.
It’s a Georgian picnic on the king’s barge.
Oh jolly ― lapis, vermilion
and gold brocade. Roasted quail
and toasted song birds
blancmange and goblets of port.
Wait for me ― I’m coming aboard.
I want to learn the latest quadrille.
Soon I’m huffing
along the bank as the party
dopplers around the bend.
Garbage floats
toward me on the tide:
feathers & fruit skins / the corpse of a guest
empty flasks / and a skiff full of bones.
All brilliance faded and forgotten
like a quickly unraveling wisp of cloud
after the sun’s gone down.