Fiddle

I go to town to find it still there, the wide lake overflowing the boulevards in the long rain.
You walk ahead of me so I can size you up fifty-three, nearing fifty-four years later:
your close-cropped black hair, your olive skin that my fingertips bow with a smooth rosin.
The Ojibwe woman says in the wind it’s brisk. Rain doesn’t worry her so much as wind,
she confides now because I meet her in the winter sun when snow stops falling and the rain
returns and winter begins to end. She comes around the corner and says hello like women
do with men who seem friendly once the lake water recedes, spring's orange smile yawns.
Say I'm happy; why then's my long love's chin cradling Should I stay or should I go?

(6 November 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander