The couple tastes like grass and gasoline.
Party drinks, tea, line the gazebo rails— 

ink black,  
strangest the magazines flip to 

pages containing hats, 
and cords of rope sustaining two who 

make love in pain under the weeping 
black elms, toes torturous bent 

like sacrificial doves, wings rent impossible, 
back to front, folded back.

Then something slow a whimpering 
called out a song, loud like dying. 

A rhapsody. Neither knew from music, 

or a skirt hung around knees 
while roasted pig served with noodles

fed the group of carousers with largesse.
Of all nights, one night’s groaning call of yes.