Ann Silsbee

Gone With The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies, O

Plays Beethoven’s last sonata like Lucy Honeychurch.

The filigree, the trills, work her over.

Rides them into a kind of light.

Wants him to ride too, make love in the woods,

aromas of pine-warm sun on their skins,

roll in a ramshackle rooming house on Lower Main,

walls running with honey.

What he wants: a country bride in white veil,

carriage at the door, lace tablecloths,

his port in carafe, deep red old-world damask roses.

In their first season bees swarm through the house.

Yeasts sift in from the trees.

If he’d put down his book, close his eyes, listen,

he’d know how her body can sing.

Hair piled thick on her head, she’s family portrait.

But she plays with long strides,

won’t be held inside a white picket fence.

If only he would hunt her in her secret places,

wade the understory in forest green,

Nimrod bend under a bounty of persian lilacs

the windows would buzz,

the wild would be all she could bear.