Notes

a good deal of comedy in the slide trombone's
transit through dense armpits of light
gradient stars, flashing like lemons
chortling down the steep cobblestone streets
of all seven volcanic hills

we left the church together.
you had no panic in your eyes-
I wondered why, but dismissed my doubts
and accompanied you for your year of shopping.

That was our first/last tour of Europe
strained as violin strings over pizza-like smiles,
we flew on boats, on beds, on planes
learning no new languages yet.
I bought a hat.

Now, seven years after
our last/first tour of Europe
I remember your grin
and your hungers.
what a greedy girl you were

and what a guilty boy was I
to have loved that moment
away from you and your amateur friends
bathed in the dream of my twilight
outside the restaurant, musical re-enactment
of a perfect cliché, brass echoing heroic light
of dusk, woman
with accordion,
not my heart,
a musical instrument.

12/1988