She tilts her head
In delightful laughter
While words like Sicily and Rome
Roll off her lips
As if they were
Her summer homes
And so they have been
Held between fingertips
As she turns the pages
In a scene
Of people and marketplaces
Where she has stood on shaded terraces
To watch the sun set
Over rolling vineyards
He comes to her now
Against the cool blue
Mediterranean backdrop
But poetry is not enough
To bridge the ocean
Or the deserts
Between hunger and love
Though her throat is parched
With burning of necessity
She is sandwiched
Between tumbled Canadian sky
And golden bars of sunlight
Sprawled across umber fallow
In the encroaching eventide
They dance; Sinatra knows every word
To her thoughts
And eyes will always speak more openly
Than the ineptness of speech
As she feels his heartbeat
Against her chest
In mutual anguish
And tenderness
For imminent departure
Is surely love’s
Most passionate threshold
Nobody visits this lighthouse
It is too late and too cold
They have all night to dance
And say good-bye.
She closes the book...
The clock in the tower strikes nine
J~
