by Hank Davis
One (Larry & Lynette's close harmonies)
Behind the stage, ornery kids splash noisily in the fountain pool as their rumpled folks
munch on corn dogs and 'tropical' kebabs.
The rest of us ignore the typical holiday drizzle
and plant ourselves on the dropletted benches to give our friends a congenial listen.
Lynette strums her opening notes,
those waterspider's arpeggios made by
the scuttle of her fingertips across
her husband's broad chest that let her arm come to rest lightly, expected and welcome.
If a familiar owl should graze Larry's ear with a mouse's whiskers, her prompt will feel
from habit too soft to wake the children, even
years after they've grown up and left.
She reminds him to tell us of the trickling creek they finally reached late in the afternoon, how the flowing braid of its three-foot rapids chiming against quartz pebbles seemed
to tap counterpoint against his breath
as he grasped for his knees and realized that he really ought to have the doctors recharge his ticker. They did, and this
has made him voluble with stories again.
We smile. Hikes were simpler before we all grew so damned convex. (Me too.) Good thing their kitchen harmonies keep us
listening at the window over our evening dishes
until we notice a pale dusting of starlight on the lake that the creek eventually finds
glazing the liquid ruffles from just across the way
with interwoven sparkling.
