at the old movie house
with my kids on a summer afternoon
the smell of popcorn, our fingers
sticky as the floor, all the chocolate
gone before echoes of the Wurlitzer’s
final chords die and the lights dim  

the celluloid orchestra swells
a foreshadowing medley and then the opera spills
overdressed hothouse flowers into Covent Garden
where native violets defy mud and rain and a gentleman
is actually revealed by his words
rather than the cadences of his tongue

(Yesterday’s poem got posted inadvertently while I was trying to format it in the posting window. Here’s what it was supposed to look like.)