Moonlit night, the Chicago Yacht Club, me
in a borrowed taffeta gown, you
in Bermuda shorts and dinner jacket.
On the heels of the moment
we planned the voyage to escape the dance.
(Our excitement and sense of romance a bit
choppy.) A dingy bobbing at the dock.

We stole it, rowed out toward a dark horizon,
while the maitre d’ rushed out, flailed
his arms like semaphores
against the wind, trying to coax us
back. We might have surmised
that navigation would be
troublesome with only one oar
and a broom, yet we produced three sons,
drifted and turned until, finally,
the boat broke asunder
and we swam to our separate shores.

Once there, we turned to our sons, waved
our arms like the maitre d’ and shouted,
Stay ashore, stay ashore
this boat doesn’t belong to you,
but like us, they didn’t believe it.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2003