Reading Hemingway Aloud

On the Fourth they stayed on the second story,
at the end of the street that goes nowhere.
All day in bed. She made brunch, he came down.
Hand in hand they returned upstairs.
With dark they dressed and walked to the water
and watched the fireworks. He groused, God damn,
Lovely, I’m going back. She shot back, Scrooge!

The water was blocks away.
The city was filled with lakes and boats.
These were the calm days,
even rain fell gently here
and there.
Someone said Paris sky poured rain.
He couldn’t remember The Sun Also Rises.

He started reading aloud to her
the next day she had off.
In his bungalow the rain slid off the roof.
He told her she would be Lady Ashley.
If you want.
I don’t. Make us both bystanders,
onlookers, that way we will stay here

and be there. He read until they stopped
to fish on their way to Spain.
He put the book down when Jake
did the same with Turgenev’s Sketches.
Waking, he read the immaculate opening
of A Farewell to Arms, even if it was Italy.
Then he read the end, in the rain.

(3 March 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander