IMPROVISATION #62
SOIREE

Leaving my great aunt
in Vermont
for a soiree with my family
the Scrivens
who came to America
from the Mayflower
now here off Tremont Street
in Yankee Boston
wearing their Jamesian fashion
in a stylish tweed suit
you hid Remy de Gourmont
in our yellow book
while playing twin cremonas
releasing my power of Bach's
double violin concerto
as Mrs. Gardiner
with the Berenson guy
who entertained us
with his Jewish sense of humor
in a passion for our betters
on the Venetian rug
you carrying letters
from Virginia Woolf
and Leonard
having four O'Clock tea
with spinach croissants
cucumber sandwiches,
and crumpets
along the bric-a brac walls
on a hard flowered chair
discussing Whistler
and a script of Wilde
this January
where I sight read
from "Child Harold"
in Byronic company
as Bernie Berenson
returns back home
as iconic connoisseurs
with paintings and statues
and lost art by Vermeer
well oiled by memory
filling our limpid eyes
with an intensity
from Greece and Rome.