Our summer fellowships are over! We learned a lot - for instance - how summer’s a lot less fun when you’re hemmed-up, inside working. I mean, we preesh’d the clinical experience, the learning, and especially how good these fellowships will look on our med-school applications - seriously - but there were a hundred rules - aren’t rules incompatible with summer?

Hmm, Ok, let’s see, something poetic..

As the summer sun's blistering radiance waned, shadows,
muscled by sunrays to the marginal edges and corners,
gradually spread, like water - soothing, lenifying and assuaging
simmered nerves with their refreshing, canopied touch.

If sunlight scorched with heat, twilight soothed and gentled,
while varnishing, the dimming world with rainbow, event-horizons,
larger, more inventive, colorful and glorious than any mere mortal art.

Night gradually squeezed, unseen, through those vivid sunset cracks,
and refreshing night-air, drawn in by the last, escaping updrafts of heat,
rustled cooling relief to weary workers seeking the solace of evening and home.

back to unpoetic realities..

When work was finished, we’d retreat from the heat, racing up to the rooftop pool, like two happy porpoises out of school.

Whoever invented poolside food delivery, should win the Nobel Prize for ‘thank you very much.’ We wouldn’t go back to our rooms until it was dark and we’d started to prune.

Now, we’ve a month to relax before our Junior year begins. We got letters from Yale that said, “As upperclassmen..” “Upperclassmen!” We shouted as we danced in hand-holding circles, singing, “Upperclassmen, upperclassmen, upperclassmen, upperclassmen. upperclassmen.”  
We’ve grown so much at Yale.

If you ask our NewsMax, America One fueled, republican congressmen
who won the last presidential election - they’ll pretend that they don’t know.
But hey, these are the guys, the “honest brokers” we can trust, to figure out UFOs.

These republicans disavow Trump’s clear treason. If they refuse to follow those clues,
like video captured by the guilty themselves - how can their UFO “hearings” fail to amuse?

It’s a shrewd political distraction, a republican red-herring, to put vague “aliens” in the news
just when Trump's lawyers are figuring out which prison facility he should choose.

In this circus of misinformation, we’re offered unproven decades of government collusion,
heck, we even have that RFK.jr nut insisting that the alien saucers are full of jews.

Of course, the aliens must be from distant galaxies - in their new breed of flying saucers -
why else would they be turning down so many lucrative showbiz offers?

Will it turn out that the cute, little, ET-guys are here conducting interstellar analysis?
Stay tuned. Have the aliens come to eat us - should we be frozen in fearful paralysis?
Or will our republican overlords, so busy removing our freedoms, decide it’s time to save us?

There’s no long proven, scientific fact that the newer, dumber, Republicans haven’t disputed,
maybe the UFOs were sent back from the future, their mission: study primitive human stupid.

I'm standing close by a river of rhyme,
where words cascade, in endless pantomime,
each line is a ripple, on the rugose water's crest,
but the chaotic current seems a randomized mess.

I see waves of words riding swells of sonnet,
into concrete verse, only to crash upon it.
There are dark plaintive whirlpools of elegy
and swirling haikus kissing off sharp envoi.

This river of rhyme could wash me away,
with its desperate currents of poetic dismay.
Its sensual verses can become a toxic wine,
oh, God, don’t let me drown in the river of rhyme.

The band was loud, but in the other room and the bar was jammed.
He set his drink down a little too hard and it over-sloshed a bit.

“Run away with me,” he said, spreading his arms wide, “I’m done with school!”
“Well.. you graduated - that’s why you’re done,” she said, somewhat amused.
“We share a gravity, you and I - we’re.. we’re like aligned suns,” he romanticized.
“You should’ve majored in sales.” she said, sipping her own beer.
“Our love is so real, so raw - it's pure and yet - so street.”
“We have ‘love cred’?” She asked doubtfully.
“Wherever we go, we'll navigate that urban maze, hand in hand, we’ll OWN those concrete streets, we’ll paint our own graffiti!
“Have you snorted something?’
“No matter what life throws at us, we’ll face those challenges head-on and we'll stay united.”
“Have you been practicing this?” She asked
“We’ll swagger,” he said, “our love will be timeless..”
“And rhymeless,” she interjected hopefully.
“Together, we’ll be urban legends..” he continued.
“Like Bonnie and Clyde?” she asked, making a yuck face.
“We’ll be living art,” he said dreamily.
“Sounds dope.” She admitted.
“Then you’ll DO it?” He asked.
“Until Monday,” she said, nodding in assent, “classes start on Monday,” she shrugged.
“It was worth a shot.” he said stoically, after a moment.
“It was a good pitch,’” she said, taking his hand in hers.
“I didn’t oversell - I wasn’t too pushy?”
“No, you were right there,” she assured him.
“Maybe next time,” he said.
“Yeah, maybe next time”
They kissed.

It was a cool, overcast and windy Sunday morning in March 2014. We were about 50 miles from Paris, at my Grandmère’s (grandmother’s) farm. She lives in Paris, but she owns a Château and surrounding 1,100-hectare farm that she calls her “fall retreat.”

Between three and five hundred people work on the farm, the Château and its surrounding shops (some work is seasonal). The shops sell wool, cheese, wine and ice cream produced on the farm, as well as touristy things. Many of the employees live on the farm, rent free. Their homes, owned by the farm, form a hameau (village). I didn’t understand much of this at the time, I was 10 years old.

My Grandmère was dedicating a new store just off the village green. The green wasn’t square, like those in the UK and it didn’t have swings or a slide, as I’d hoped. You’d think I’d know a hamlet my Grandmère owned but this place was alien to me. I’d arrived as part of her entourage but as the presentation ground on, I got bored. So, I took Charles by the hand and off we went.

We (my little nuclear family) were living in the UK then and we were visiting Paris for the Easter holiday. The fall before, as the school year had started, a girl in my grade (4th grade or year 5 in the UK) had been kidnapped and murdered on her way home from school. My Grandmère was “having none of it,” and hired Charles, a burly, red-headed, just retired, ex-NYC cop, as my security, escort and practical nanny. He’d been with me for about half a year, at that point, and we’d become fast friends.

It was the height of the pre-summer, Easter season. In addition to the villagers, there were tourists everywhere, picnicking on the grass, visiting the shops and playing football (soccer). Most of the tourists seemed to have small children that ran around. The townspeople sat on benches, eating ice creams and playing dominoes or quoits, a horseshoes-like game, played on a sand pitch.

You couldn’t mistake the two groups - the natives and the tourists. The towns folk were plainly dressed, the women in simple smocks and sweaters, the men wearing slacks, tweed jackets, berets or tag hats. The tourists spoke other languages - there were Italians, Britts, Germans and even Americans - who wore sports logoed t-shirts, shorts, sneakers and baseball caps.

As Charles and I wandered around the village, I asked, “Can we get a sirop?” One of the most popular drinks, in France, is a grenadine sirop (soda). We stopped and as Charles bought us drinks, I wandered a way off. He found me, moments later, hanging from a tree limb, upside down, my hair sweeping the grass like a broom.

“Stop that,” he’d said, swooping me up and off the branch with his soda free hand and setting me alright. As he picked leaves out of my hair, he said, “Don’t wander away from me like that, you know better.” “Yes sir” I agreed. A moment later, he picked me up and placed me atop a low, four-foot parapet wall that ran around the village. I could feel sharp, rough stone edges through my cotton dress but I drank my sirop and didn’t complain.

“You saved me from the dragon,” I said, after my first few sips.
“What dragon?” he said.
“The dragon that had me in its teeth, over there.” I pointed at the tree where I’d been upside down.
“I saved you from yourself,” he said, as he looked around the square.
“That’s silly,” I announced, “how can someone need saving from themselves?”
“Oh, It happens all the time,” he said.

The event ended and as people began leaving, they filed by us on the sidewalk. The village men doffed their hats and the women nodded a quick curtsey as they passed. “Why are they doing THAT?” I asked Charles, “am I a princess?”
“No,” he snorted, “you’re no kind of princess. They’re doing it out of respect for your illustrious grandmother.” “Oh,” I said disappointedly.

A moment later our car pulled up and we were headed back to the city. “Did you have fun?” my Grandmère asked, “yes mam,” I answered. “Did you behave yourself?” She followed up. “Mostly,” I admitted. She nodded, pronouncing, “That’s how it should be,” as the limo turned onto the autoroute (expressway) and accelerated for lunch in Paris.

(Leeza, my roommate Lisa’s little sister, was off-tha-hook earlier this summer)

thirteen
peach flesh
fabuk buster
nu-metal priss
sexless *******
bitten fingernails
***** babyskin feet
mirror mesmerized
straight-eyed honesty
grouchapottamus
without analysis
corollary sister
wide eyed
hot mess
skinny
pacer
bella
doe

Lisa and I finally tested covid-free! When we saw our results, we began an impromptu dance that felt like levitation.

Although my covid case seemed much milder, Lisa’s been nothing but supportive. Why just yesterday morning, before we tested, Lisa said, “If you test covid-free before I do, I’ll **** you.” She was holding a spork which gave the threat a specific gravity it might otherwise have lacked.
“Back off, Sweeny,” I said.

We worked the next day, masked - just in case - and I’d swear that Rebecca, my surgeon, almost smiled when she saw me. As funny as Rebecca is, off-hours, once she puts on that white coat - forgetaboutit - she goes to some other, humor-free zone.

That night, we went out to our favorite bar to celebrate our Lazarus-like resurrections.

In the club, as we were walking to the bar, Lisa asked me, “What if we get carded?” I gasped. Never, have I EVER been carded. To even suggest the possibility is to risk breaking a spell that has lasted since I was fifteen years old and first walked in the adult-bar world.

It’s not that I look old, I’ve been told I don't look 21 (although I’m almost 20) - but in dark, bar-light - I just look “right,” like I belong. And let's face it, no bar turns away college girls or charges them a cover - we’re good for business.

I put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder and stopped us in our tracks. “Turn around three times,” I said.
“Why?” She asked. “To break the god-****, bad luck, vu doo you just put on us!” I said exasperatedly. She shrugged and started to turn in a circle. Again I took her by the shoulders, “Counter-clockwise,” I instructed, “don’t you know anything?!” Once she’d broken the jinx, we were free to go on.  The next part can only be poetry.

Behind the bar were shelves of bottles, brightly lit,
with pastel glows that shame the merely silver moon.
Red rums, golden bourbons, begging you to commit,
elixirs that dull every pain and brighten every mood.
Give us your tired, your lonely, and like Houdini
we’ll invoke fun with mystical treats like martinis.

We were basking in those lantern-like glows, like tourists, in heaven, when a bartender said, “What can I get you?” How generous those words were, how open and inviting.

“What’s your name?” I asked, he was wearing a name tag but I leaned in and gave him my friendliest smile. It’s important to establish a personal connection - but you can’t get carried away. He might be gay and decide you’re trailer.

“Brian,” he said. Brian was talking to me, but then he’d noticed Lisa and suddenly, he couldn’t take his eyes off her (Lisa’s an adriana). This bartender wasn’t gay at ALL.

I handed him my black, Centurion, American Express card “Can we set a tab for us?” I motioned to include Lisa, “and please include a 30% tip for yourself.” I smiled. He smiled.
“Oh, and there’ll be a gentleman joining us as well (Charles).”
“Sure.” he said, as he swiped the card on his iPad, adding, “now, what are you having?”

I’m a bit of a bon vivant, where cocktails are concerned but tonight, we’ll keep it vanilla.
“We’ll start with a Cherry coke (for Charles) and,” I looked at Lisa for approval, “Two American Martinis?” She smiled, “Please,” I added, putting my card away.
The coke is psychologically important; it gives the bartender what’s called 'plausible deniability.’
“Do you have a menu?” I said, as he turned to go. “Coming right up,” he said.

We were on a rooftop terrace that overlooked the Boston skyline. To the left, there were tables enclosed in glowing, geodesic bubbles that changed colors and off to the right, a dance space where couples were dancing, and a DJ was spinning ‘Sorja Smith’s - Little things.’

Our drinks arrived and Lisa and I laughingly toasted our covid survival.
At that moment, at least, everything seemed right with the world.