They’re an unusual pair.
Him gangly and goofy, a string-bean Swede,
In jacket and trousers that don’t match.
Her diminutive and compact, blonde curls.
The farm-girl glamour she never lost.
Smartly dressed in Sunday best,
They might be off to church,
Or his father’s coaching inn, or else
Pushing the boat out a bit,
Taking a trip in a borrowed car
Or her father’s horse and trap,
On a road to who-knows-where,
Past milking fields, hedgerows
of hawthorn and ash, spring
Uncoiling into a hint of summer.
Or perhaps no further than this garden.
The evergreen lawn this portrait depicts
In varying shades of sepia grey -
Slight stain marring the print -
As something vague resolves itself
Into something indelibly real,
Like the familiar becoming loved.
All that a camera cannot capture:
Sun essaying from behind the clouds,
What words passed between them
As they held their smiling pose,
The footprints left in the deep grass
As they walked toward the house
In cahoots, closer than close.