Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.
Forgotten Anniversary
As they sped through Maine on their way to a vacation My parents passed a small hotel – a forgotten refuge. Ella Fitzgerald, a favorite, was on the radio – sweet tones of “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Dad sighed with pleasure.
“Oh!” exclaimed my mother, “That place is where we spent Our honeymoon 30 years ago!” …And Dad, wistful, drove on. “So that’s why last week you asked me,” my chastened mother said, “If I’d rather do dinner out, or instead be given a new nightgown!”
And Ella and Louis Armstrong continued on the radio, Stars shining bright like memories inside my parents’ car. “It was something like that,” said my father, used to Mom’s Forgetfulness. “Sorry – our anniversary escaped me,” she wailed.
But in regret she gave him a little kiss of fondness and Kept dreaming of the past, when they’d danced cheek to cheek, And the radio kept playing and they finished their vacation, Happy, like the future-thinking lovers they once were.