Northampton Style

Evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer Northampton-style, on the porch out back. Its voice touches and parts the air of summer, as if  it swam to time us down a river where we dive and leave a single track as evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer that lets us wash our mix of dreams together. Delicate, tacit, we engage in our act; its voice touches and parts the air of summer. When we disentangle you are not with her I am not with him. Redress calls for tact. Evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer still. A small breeze rises and the leaves stir as uneasy as we, while the woods go black; its voice touches and parts the air of summer and lets darkness enter us; our strings go slack though the player keeps up his plangent attack. Evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer; its voice touches and parts the air of summer.