MERRIMENT ON A SUMMER EVENING

Sounds of a wild party drift across the lake,
booze-fueled laughter and witty fragments
of conversation can’t be deciphered.

It’s a pastiche of ordinary talk and oracular burblings,
scribble-scrabbled across a moon-lit sky
like a hebephrenic word salad or a Pollock painting.

It’s the soft jabbering of light-hearted partygoers
who have so much to say, with scintillating
syntax and vowels in place just out of reach.

Everyone shines like sunflowers leaning toward a noonday sun.
Listening to their banter, soothing as the ebb and flow
of the ocean surf proves happiness exists.

Glasses clink, ice cubes swirl amidst cackles and guffaws
of something that must be hilarious enough
to cause some to run for the john.

Immersed in delight, death no longer exists.

Some can be heard straggling behind a Conga line.
Music shifts to Bossa nova as French-kissing
dancing partners touch belly and cheeks.

One pair sneaks into a bedroom
caressing an unfamiliar torso and face.

Intoxicated by the music, dance, and drink,
old friends at ease, tease each other seductively;
One leaves the party without his mate.

A heart will be broken in a deafening stillness.