country music night was a soft adventure
much stranger and more charming than expected
the living room was microscopic
they were passing around a fifth of whiskey
"i hope you don’t mind," said our host
a heavily-bearded med school/phd student
"but i drink from the bottle"
uh, groovy…  i stuck with beer
and admired his grungy charisma
we tuned to his autoharp
which was out of tune
we sang silly old country songs
he’d printed out lyrics and chords
young hippies came and went
a banjo, a fiddle, a lute, two ukuleles
my flashy flatpicking and slide
sweet, ragged harmonizing
we’d landed on the planet of pure music
skipping from moon to moon
till way past midnight
you should have been there