Saturday Night

Dawn Potter

Because, across a crowded table,

the man you have loved for twenty-five years

catches your eye and breaks into a smile

so bright it could light up the Yukon;

because, as you smile back through the candle flame,

your lanky fifteen-year-old leans all his wiry,

vibrating weight against your shoulder,

and your chair shudders and your neighbors laugh;

because when you put your arms around your boy

and press your cheek into his bristly hair,

he reaches for your hand and holds it against his own cheek

and doesn’t let you go;

because the man on the tiny stage dances

over the guitar strings as if his fat hands

are as fragile as the snowflakes

that sift slowly from the unseen sky;

because the crowd breathes alongside you

in easy patience, in careful, quiet joy;

because even time has paused

to shift its flanks and listen,

you say to yourself:

I will remember this.

I will remember this forever.

***

This poem, which has undergone numerous title changes, is included in Vocation, my most recent poetry manuscript. Though it was not originally composed as part of the western Pennsylvania series, I have at times reconfigured it to fit into that chronology. For the moment, however, I've let it slip more naturally into the music themes of Vocation. The collection, as it now stands, includes a number of poems that center on playing or listening to music--experiences that are not necessarily easy or delightful. But sometimes music and love do come together, and that is what I was trying to describe in "Saturday Night."

Happy Thanksgiving to you and to everyone you love. May you have warm hands and someone to hold them.