Friday Night at Paul & Anna's

She wore a light blue dress she said she saved
for special occasions:
This was one.
He nuzzled her behind one ear as she drove;
Lovely said nothing,
he kept on.
Your clarinet’s been oiled, Paul volunteered.
They had beef griot,
Anna called it.
After dinner they drank brandy from a snifter,
sharing his with Lovely.
He took up the clarinet, moistening the reed,
then blowing off-key and running the scale,
relaxing into a slow tongue
making the reed squall
before trilling to run the scale again,
the fast climb from the lower register,
and from high the fall, full-throated descent.
He made what he played become a refrain.
Such was the melody he searched for
that when an hour was gone he found the song
and felt a quiver, her blue eyes aglow.
Left alone, Lovely kissed him a long while.
He said Now, now,
meaning, More . . .

(22 February 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander