KATHRYN MACDONALD

Yellow Pottery

Snow clings to shadows 
along the Moira River
where mallards, egrets,
and a Great Blue seek 
the early run of fingerlings
along the weedy shore.
My icy fingers fumble the cd
into the slot – Michael Occhipinti 
playing Bruce Cockburn – 
a bit of jazz in the afternoon.

Yellow wine in yellow pottery.

The absence of you fills the room,
a small club on the south shore,
Detroit’s skyline reflected in the river,
a quartet, old men, in the corner, 
I didn’t know what time it was 
flowing in long, yellow notes, 
we swayed, danced, oblivious. 

Yellow wine in yellow pottery,
the absence of you, another river.

Note: “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was,” a Rodgers and Hart song.