One day you may veer your van or perhaps
the spiffy family sedan off the 422 freeway
driving home by the back way, past the Corinthian
Yacht Club, where guests palmed their cognacs
when you and I stripped and dove underneath
the dock by the tackle and gift shop.
You may try to remember
the swish of my gypsy dress hitting the planks
any maybe lift your hand from the wheel
trying the sketch the curve of my spine,
the Cyrillic tattoo right under its dip.
Your wife, blonde like a baby, will remain slack
against the leather headrest, but the kid
in back will ask, Dad? What’s
up with your hand?
Yo! Dad! And you’ll say, Nothing.
But you’ll
think
hard, try to recall if the sound of dance band
came swinging up from the clubhouse,
if there were deer by the marina or just pockets of fog,
shifting, if the air was warm with grass and magnolia
or lavishly scentless, and what may come through
are those footsteps, like gunshots, overhead—
a waitress in her white apron and little lace hat
carrying cocktails to the pier’s
gazebo. Her surprise,
her giggles, Jeez, guyz! Youse shouldn’t
be here!
our smiles of relief, slatted by moonlight—
and how, afterward, we both fit in one spotted towel
the one she had left us.
Then, after you steer that slick car up your driveway
you may wonder in the few seconds it takes
your garage door to howl open
what has happened to me, what in the world
has become of you
Elisabeth Majewski is a native from Eindhoven, The Netherlands. She works as a part-time English instructor at Montgomery County Community College and is a freelance translator in Dutch, French and German. Her poetry has been published in French by the La Fontaine poetry association at www.lafontaine.net. Elisabeth lives in Gilbertsville, PA.