Cherry Street

in a window of perfect weather,
we danced up Cherry Street,
past the publishing houses
and the panhandling poets,
round where the park opens up,
inviting us in to twirl away our troubles
and feed albino squirrels all afternoon.

she clung to me
like a damsel in distress

in a Buster Keaton film,
her sundress flowing
under flowering trees,
she feels the breeze,

and says to me
"it's so beautiful to hear Al Green sing about love 

in your head and feel that that articulates how I feel."

I heard the music, too

in the welcomed respite from life,

for Seattle in the spring is miraculous,

despite the hobo camps 

and work waiting on the horizon,

I am here for this latin love affair

that lasted a weekend and forever.