By: William C. Blome

There’s a cast of several characters dancing furiously on the bar:
There’s a witness called Ondine and a seamstress named Cornelia;
There’s a fishwife ‘goes by Yowlu and a pastor ‘comes to Karlson;
There’s a greenbottle fly with an amber compound eye,
There’s a sniffy basset hound ‘won’t jump down to ground.

I remember seeing you first in a trio,
‘Remember giving you a name you tattooed near your sex,
‘Remember giving you a sketch you tattooed past your wrist
(So all the world would spy if you angle your bow just so)
And make your cello moan for hale and hearty bathers
Flapping in the sun. Methinks a life could now conclude
For both of us as we grip the shoals and shallows hereabout,

Snug in one another, tight in this boudoir of pounding waves,
And still waiting for the dry drinks we ordered at the bar.