House Concert

Back then we were beautiful,
I say to tonight’s singer songwriter,
remembering when I last saw her play
on the museum lawn in the nineties.
She wore a starched white men’s shirt
with red cowboy boots then; I listened on a quilt
with the lover I’d spend my life with.
Tonight, she’s in zebra pants, matching platform
zebra shoes, pink hair though she’s the mother
of teens and heavy in the hips.

But when she stands in the center
of the living room, red guitar hanging
from her strong body, sings alone a song she wrote
in the voice of the mother of the boy
who shot so many, she is close
enough to touch but far
too beautiful to watch.