ost evenings last August or an August before that

rich red sauce bubbles on the stove—

spicy curls of steam are sneaking,

sneak from beneath the pot’s slanted lid.

Cornhusk eyes gleam between the geraniums, night owl

perched on the lip of the paint chipped flower-box.

Garden days have produced the most fruitful suppers,

lined long wooden tables in squash, corn, tomatoes.

Our stereo drips fuzzy tones—words are like sour water,

our barn’s leaky faucet. His hands clutch her waist,

Her skirt’s petals, these strange pleats that keep evening’s beat.

Failing floorboards and the crickets creek

(in dissonance joins the furnace groan.)

Tonight is a symphony:

we crouch on carpeted stairs.

But ten eyes between railings we are—they sway back

and forth—sway they on the cheap linoleum.